There’s been a push to limit the amount a key ingredient used to manufacture methamphetamines that people can buy over-the-counter. A recent bill aims at doing just that, but some law enforcement officials don’t believe it went far enough.

Putnam County Sheriff David Andrews said drugs are connected to a huge part of those in jail right now. Andrews said that if it wasn’t for drugs they wouldn’t need such a large jail. In fact, it was just a couple of years ago the Herald-Citizen reported that Putnam County was paying close to $20,000 a month for other counties to house our inmates due to overcrowding issues.

How to deal with meth has been a hot-button issue in Tennessee for a while. The state currently has the second highest number of meth lab incidents in the country. According to a 2014 report released by the Office of Research and Education Accountability, Tennessee had 1,717 meth lab incidents in 2012.

In an effort to reduce meth lab incidents, Gov. Bill Haslam introduced a proposal that would have placed restrictions on the amount of products containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine without a prescription. Popular cold medicines use those ingredients in over-the-counter products. The Tennessee legislature passed a bill that would permit consumers to buy 28.8 grams per year. That’s a higher amount that what Haslam proposed.

Andrews said he doesn’t think this goes far enough.

Another Putnam County law enforcement official agrees. Maj. Nathan Honeycutt of the Cookeville Police Department is the Middle Tennessee Regional Director of the Tennessee Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Task Force. “I think it was a step in the right direction,” Honeycutt said, adding he doesn’t think it was enough.

Honeycutt said meth labs are a serious problem in this state. “At this point, meth labs are down from last year,” he said. He said there is several reasons for that, one of them being the fact that a number of Tennessee communities have passed prescription-only laws in an effort to combat the meth problem themselves. However, Tennessee Attorney General Robert Cooper issued an opinion late last year that stated he believed those rules violated state law.

Honeycutt said Oregon and Mississippi have laws that require prescriptions to purchase these products. “They have a very low number of meth labs every year,” Honeycutt said.

According to Honeycutt, legislators are talking about how this law would help the meth problem.

Some feel meth would come from other places if this law was passed. Honeycutt said the law is targeting meth labs, which are very dangerous for a variety of reasons.

A common way of “cooking” meth is using what is sometimes referred to as the shake-and-bake method. It is very dangerous and sometimes results in severe burns that require hospitalization and in some cases can cause death. A number of burn-related cases seen in hospitals nationwide are related to meth.

Limiting the amount of products that contain pseudoephedrine and ephedrine would reduce the meth labs. Honeycutt said you can’t do it without these ingredients.

Honeycutt said the Tennessee Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Task Force really did support the governor’s original proposal and wish that it had passed in that form.

“We are hopeful it makes a difference,” Honeycutt said about the bill passed by the legislature, adding they are not optimistic.