WVSU Students Learn About A Vital Tool To Fight Meth
4.1.16– Putnam Live
NPLEx Monitoring Forum Held At Wallace Hall
Despite the recent grown of heroin addiction and overdoses, Methamphetamine production and use continues to be a big problem in the Mountain State.
Students and faculty at West Virginia State University learned first-hand Monday evening, March 28th, 2016, how law enforcement and retailers are using the National Precursor Log Exchange Program (NPLEx) to combat meth in West Virginia.
NPLEx is a powerful and proven tool that allows retailers to block sales of cold and allergy medicine containing pseudoephedrine (PSE) when consumers have reached their daily, monthly and yearly limit allowed by law. This monitoring tool provides law enforcement with the information they need to arrest and prosecute criminals that use safe and effective medicine containing PSE to make meth.
Under Mountain State law, individuals are prohibuted from buying more than 3.6 grams per day, of products containing pseudoephedrine, 7.2 grams per month, and 48 grams per year, without a doctor’s prescription. NPLEx keeps track of these limits, including how many boxes of pseudoephedrine are purchased and how many of those purchases are blocked. It is an effective tool.
In 2015 alone, NPLEx blocked the illegal sale of more than 18,000 boxes of PSE in West Virginia preventing over 50,000 grams of PSE from being illegally sold. The NPLEx program was launched in the Mountain State in January of 2013.
Dr. Kerri Steele, assistant professor in West Virginia State University’s Department of Criminal Justice says, “The effective use of technology in law enforcement is critical in today’s society and students in the field must understand all the tools available to them to fight crime.”
Krista McCormick, who led Monday’s forum and is an account manager with Appriss, the manufacturer/operator of the NPLEx system, says, “NPLEx is a valuable tool used by law enforcement officials in 30 states across the country. West Virginia police officers and narcotics agents are already doing a tremendous job of using NPLEx to keep meth off the street and put criminals behind bars. By hosting these forums, we hope to educate our next generation of law enforcement professionals on the tools and tactics available to combat meth.”
Read more here.