MethWatch Community Forum

Super Stop has more than forty stores throughout Mississippi and Alabama and Director of Operations Larry Lippert says they're all ephedra free for one reason. The battle with Methamphetamine...

"You've got people that can't work, you've got robberies. It all kinda, one big snowball. People breaking into homes, people robbing stores like this or whatever, just to get their money because they can't hold a job," said Lippert.

Lippert was just one of several retailers and community members to attend a MethWatch Community Forum. MethWatch is a national program intended to educate retailers to the dangers and signs of methamphetamine use and production.

Ephedra and synthetic psuedoephedrine are just some of the ingredients Meth Dealers can buy at local convenience stores, anything from cold medicine to starter fluid. Officials hope that teaching retailers the signs can keep the meth problem from reaching epidemic proportions here at home.

"If they don't jump on it now we're really scared that it is gonna get worse," said April Mosley of Weems Mental Health Center.

"From what I understand, it is more addictive than cocaine and it is harder to get people off of, and they say that the first time use. You're addicted when you use it the first time," said Lippert.

Lippert says Super Stop stores also participate in drug screening and education for their employees.

"We don't want to be part of the problem. We want to be the solution to the problem, or part of the solution," said Lippert.

He says the stores can't afford not to be aware of the problem.