They are using every tool available to get the upper hand in this daily battle and they are hoping it will pay off.

Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said, "We're seeing it everyday, sometimes two, three times a day."

The sheriff's office is doing everyday police work to bust meth makers, but now that it's easier to make meth authorities have to be more vigilant to find them.

And that means stopping them before they get started.

Bay County Sheriff’s Office Captain Faith Bell added, “If we have to wait until the lab phase we will, but ideally we don't want to, we want to catch them before it gets to the lab phase because of the dangers of it."

That starts with the new meth check ordinance.

Sheriff Frank McKeithen drafted the ordinance in September, and it was passed by the Bay County commission, Panama City Beach city council, and Panama City commission.

It requires any pharmacy selling pseudoephedrine, or ephedrine products to record who's buying the product in the online meth check database.

Ephedrine is the main ingredient in meth.

McKeithen said, "You can't make meth without ephedrine, and you can't make chocolate milk without chocolate."

By law you can only get 3.6 grams of ephedrine at one time, and a total of 9 grams a month.

And the sheriff is trying to keep abusers from hitting several stores without anyone knowing.

"It's something wrong with this picture when you can buy legal items and make an illegal substance so easily. You can actually buy and steal items to make meth quicker than you can go to a local restaurant and eat dinner,” added McKeithen.

Meth check is only one tool in the war against meth, Sheriff McKeithen says his team is developing new strategies daily, because they know drug abusers and meth cookers will do whatever it takes to keep making meth.

So they have to do whatever it takes to stop them.

"When they come with a way to get around us, we come up with a way to stay one step ahead of them," added Bell.
McKeithen said, "I've been fighting the war on crime for 35 years, and I see we're losing, but you have to win a battle. You might lose the war, but you can still win a battle, but you can't quit."

And they are winning battles.

The Bay County Sheriff's Office and Panama City Police Department created B.A.D.G.E.S., the Bay Area Drug and Gang Enforcement Squad, and it's leading the way statewide to shutting down meth operations with over 70 so far this year.

The meth check ordinance was already used voluntarily by several pharmacies, but there has been some misconception with the program.

In order to purchase any ephedrine product you have to show personal identification and sign for it and that information is recorded and kept in a database.

The change the ordinance requires is that it will be kept electronically so that every pharmacy using the program will be able to automatically know who's reached their limit of the drug and won't sell it to them.

Before pharmacies would have to go to the sheriff's office and physically pull those records.