The program is called "Leads On Labs" and police believe it will make it extremely difficult for meth users to get their hands on ephedrine and pseudo-ephedrine, key ingredients in the drug. Last year, legislators passed a law limiting the sales of over-the-counter cold medicines containing those ingredients, but North Little Rock police say it left a loophole.
The current law requires pharmacists to keep ephedrine products behind the counter, regulate how many boxes of cold medicine a person can buy and keep track of who is buying it. North Little Rock pharmacist Susie Morgan says, "Those are recorded when they're sold. We make them sign a book and if it's somebody I don't know, I ask for identification."
Morgan and pharmacists across the state are forced to follow that protocol because of Act 256. It went into affect last year in an attempt to keep meth users from buying huge amounts of ephedrine.
North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley explains, "Immediately we saw about a 50 percent reduction, not only in North Little Rock, but across the state. So, that was very successful, but still that didn't stop the problem."
Bradley says meth addicts can still go from one pharmacy to another to get enough cold tablets to make meth, but a new program called "Leads On Labs" will stop that. It will automate the sale of cold tablets and show pharmacists and police, on a computer database, who's buying what and how much.
Morgan says, "I will be able to trace sales to a particular person, and if I see somebody coming in wanting it and I pull them up and they're already on [the database], they're not gonna get it here."
"We finally realized it was the only way to get this stuff off the street," says Mark Riley with the Arkansas Pharmacy Association.
The system is expected to go into effect in North Little Rock in July of this year. Police say the average cold sufferer shouldn't be concerned about the tracking system. "We’re not getting any information except the sale of these particular cold tablets. The information is kept short term and disposed of," explains Bradley.
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