Murphy said he didn’t have much trouble finding enough pills to cook with. He said he never relied on Smurfs, just bought a box or two at a time in Liberty, Danville, Russell Springs, Columbia or wherever he happened to be.
“They knew I was country,” he said of the clerks who sold him the boxes. “I’d tell them I’d been working all day in tobacco or hay, and was having an allergy attack. I thought I was fooling them, but they probably knew what I was up to.”
It was those purchases, however, that provided the evidence that caused Murphy to plead guilty to manufacturing methamphetamine. They were all recorded on MethCheck, which backed up the accusations he was a cooker, he said.
MethCheck has proven helpful in making cases against cookers, Wright said. But Kentucky lawmakers missed an opportunity to seriously cripple meth production when they failed to pass legislation that would have made pseudoephedrine available by prescription only during this year’s session. The lobbying group Consumer Healthcare Products Association, made up of companies with large shares of the cold and allergy market, spent $486,053 to the defeat the bill.
“It’s great to catch them making it, but wouldn’t it be better to prevent it from being made?” Wright asked, expressing his disappointment with the legislature’s lack of action.
Murphy agreed that making pseudoephedrine prescription-only would effectively put the small-time cookers like himself out of business, but he said it wouldn’t stop people from continuing to abuse the highly-addictive powder. Meth produced in sophisticated, large-scale laboratories in western states, Mexico and South America would take the place of the homemade stuff, he said.
“I don’t see nobody out there saying ‘I kicked it.’ I’ve been in 18 months and I haven’t kicked it yet. I’m just now getting to the point I don’t dream about it. I’m just dealing with it,” Murphy said. “I wouldn’t have quit, not on my own. To me, death or getting busted is about the only way to kick it.
“It was fun. I have to admit, I pretty much enjoyed it,” he continued. “I felt like I could be the next president of the United States. I was a bulls*** salesman with a head full of samples.”
Murphy has spent his sentence, so far, at two halfway houses in Louisville, earning 63 cents a day cleaning churches and moving pallets in a warehouse of a non-profit agency. He’s hoping to get into a substance abuse program before he makes his first appearance before the parole board in November. He believes he’s ready for a second chance.
“I feel like I’ve learned a lot, and I know I won’t go back to it,” he said. “I want to get my GED and get a decent job. I look forward to making the minimum wage. I’ve got a lot to go home to. I’ve already missed two of my daughter’s birthdays, and I don’t want to miss any more.”
Whether two years of incarceration is enough to cure Murphy of his meth habit remains to be seen. Others who pleaded guilty in 2010 will soon have served the required 20 percent of their 10-year sentences and will be parole-eligible in the coming months. Wright is curious to see how many will become repeat meth offenders.
“If someone took a 10-year sentence in 2010, they’re just now getting ready to come out, so we’re about to find out if incarceration has been successful,” the prosecutor said.
While Wright and Allen are wearied by the extra burden meth has added to their workload, they are quick to point out the immeasurable negative impact the drug and its production are having across the spectrum. Users are so single-minded in their pursuit that other responsibilities fall by the wayside. Relationships are destroyed, children are neglected, health deteriorates rapidly. The refrigerators of most methheads are empty.
