Kentucky officials reach across state lines for help with detecting meth ingredients crossing the border.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced a partnership between his office and law enforcement with a pilot program promoting teamwork between the Bluegrass and Indiana.

In a press release, the governor’s office states, “Kentucky plans to expand its electronic monitoring system into Indiana to track sales of over-the-counter cold and sinus drugs. Officials say nearly one-third of all meth labs found last year in Kentucky were in Jefferson and Bullitt counties.”

When contacted by the Daily News, communications director for Justice and Public Safety Jennifer Brislin said Kentucky is working with various counties from Indiana and hoping to link Ohio and Tennessee to the electronic system that tracks purchases of cold medication, containing the ingredient psuedoephedrine

Brian Lewis with Operation UNITE said he knows of one group that traveled to Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee, and then back to Kentucky to make methamphetamine.

This program will expand the commonwealth’s statewide electronic pseudoephedrine monitoring system with hopes of deterring individuals from crossing state lines to purchase the main ingredient in methamphetamine or meth.

The governor’s office reports that while meth labs in many Kentucky counties have “dwindled due to MethCheck and laws regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine, labs along some border cities have flourished, as individuals simply cross state lines to circumvent the statewide tracking system. In 2008, 29 percent of all reported meth labs discoveries were in Jefferson and Bullitt counties.”

This pilot program marks the first time that states have shared electronic pseudoephedrine purchase information on a real-time basis.

“This partnership offers a tremendous tool for plugging an opportunity that has allowed individuals to circumvent our laws with relative ease and establish meth labs in Kentucky with ingredients purchased elsewhere,” Beshear said.

The Office of Drug Control Policy will monitor the program’s success and work with other border cities that may benefit from a similar program.

Mingo County is borders Kentucky but Brislin said officials from West Virginia have yet to be contacted to join the program even though the state implements a meth ingredient monitoring system.

In June of 2005, West Virginia Legislature passed SB 147 that requires the products that have as its single active ingredient ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine is kept behind the pharmacy county with the exception of pediatric products.

This law requires customers purchasing cold products to produce a government issued photo ID showing their date of birth. The person must then sign a form stating the date of transaction; the name, address and driver’s license or state issued identification number of the person; and the name, quantity of packages and total gram weight of products purchased.

Only pharmacists and registered technicians are allowed to make the sale of these products. No more than three packages or nine grams may be sold to an individual within a 30-day period.

The Kentucky governor’s office stated that in its first nine months of operation, MethCheck recorded more than 850,000 sales and successfully blocked more than 13,000 transactions that would have violated state and federal laws.

“Those transactions represent 44,000 grams of pseudoephedrine that potentially could have been diverted to produce methamphetamine,” the press release states.