Fertilizer dealer Joe Keys remembers driving home on a New Year's Eve a year ago, not yet aware of how big the methamphetamine problem is in the Wabash Valley.

He left his business at Keys Fertilizer in Edgar County, Ill., heading to his nearby home to monitor a party being given by his teenage sons. As he drove, he noticed two men walking down the road six miles from the nearest town of Paris.

He thought it strange at the time, but was more preoccupied with keeping an eye on his sons' festivities.

Days later, his secretary at Keys Fertilizer said her brother-in-law, Marshall, Ill., Police Chief Mike Wilson, had arrested a woman for possession of methamphetamine. The woman readily confessed her suppliers got anhydrous ammonia fertilizer - a key ingredient in meth - from Keys Fertilizer.

It was then - with the image of a secret line of people draining fertilizer from the tanks on his business's two acres in the middle of nowhere - that the extent of the meth problem hit him.

From Paris to Marshall and Terre Haute to Sullivan, methamphetamine has business owners, farmers, pharmacists and gas station attendants struggling to keep good products away from a network of labs and addicts determined to misuse them.

In addition to anhydrous ammonia, meth requires common items such as pseudoephedrine, found in over-the-counter cold medicines, drain cleaner, acetone solvent used to strip paint, rubbing alcohol, engine starting fluid and lithium batteries used in cameras.

There is no federal or state law prohibiting business owners from selling meth ingredients, or "precursors."

The Comprehensive Methamphetamine Control Act of 1996, also called the "Meth Act," simply prohibits companies from distributing precursors with "reckless disregard" for their intended illicit use.

The act raised the penalties for trafficking in precursor chemicals and raised some penalties for selling chemicals or other materials, knowing that they would be used to manufacture meth. Civil remedies also were added and strengthened. The Meth Act also authorized more government power to stop violations through injunctions and other remedies.

What it did not do: Control the meth problem. Lab busts, arrests and children removed from meth lab homes have increased each year since the act was passed.

And still, despite increased security, meth makers sneak onto Keys Fertilizer's site and cut the expensive hoses that lead from fertilizer tanks - $900 worth in the past year, Keys says. The thieves slip a bicycle innertube over the cut hose and drain off what they can. It's a dangerous job, considering the skin-scorching hazards of anhydrous ammonia.

"I cannot fathom doing what they do. They're all burned all over their faces and their necks," Keys says. "Apparently, the drive for the drug is that strong."

Behind-the-counter controls

It takes more than a stuffy nose and a sad face to get Sudafed from pharmacist Jim Bailey.

The more limited supply of the drug and its generic competitors are kept off store shelves.

And for a customer to buy just one pack of the medication, Bailey first must know the customer. Then, he requires a driver's license number and a signature on a notebook he keeps behind the counter at JR Pharmacy on Poplar Street.

Walk-in customers unfamiliar to Bailey are just out of luck.

"We've had a few throw a fit," he says, "but they usually don't put up much of a fight."

Other than anhydrous ammonia, the most-stolen precursor is pseudoephedrine.

The Meth Act also eliminated or narrowed regulatory exemptions for certain drug products containing the precursor chemicals ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and phenylpropanolamine - a tightly regulated, rarely available drug that was used years ago in meth labs in Indiana.

But controlling the sale of pseudoephedrine, as with other precursors, is mostly up to retailers.

Pharmacies now commonly keep pseudoephedrine - the key ingredient in Sudafed and its generic forms - off store shelves, behind a counter or behind lock-and-key.

Pseudoephedrine and its more-potent but less-available relative, ephedrine, give meth its high. But operations like Bailey's tightly controlled pharmacy aren't the most vulnerable to drug theft. Convenience stores that sell cold medicines are more likely targets, said Jim Friedenberg, a pharmacist at Terre Haute Prescription Shop.

The pharmacists said some convenience stores limit the number of boxes of cold medicine to one or two 12-count packs per person per purchase, but that doesn't stop meth makers from getting the pseudoephedrine they need.

"They have a whole group of people that go around and take [one pack] here and [one pack] there," Friedenberg said.

Vigo County Drug Task Force Detective Karen Cross said major chains, including Wal-Mart, Kmart and Walgreen, to name a few, are helpful in reporting suspicious sales.

Local pharmacists, including Bailey, also keep in contact with the Drug Task Force.

Pharmacists say their biggest concern is cold medicine sales at convenience stores, which basically can go unmonitored, said Friedenberg, president of the Wabash Valley Pharmaceutical Association, which represents more than 150 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in the Valley.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Web site for Indiana, "There have been several reported incidents of gas stations and small stores selling cases of pseudoephedrine to local methamphetamine dealers. Also, retail stores are reporting increasing instances of people shoplifting and/or making repeated purchases of items used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine."

Vigo County Superior Court Judge Michael H. Eldred said it's up to retailers to take precautions in their stores to keep precursors out of the wrong hands.

"Retailers must be very, very cognizant of selling these over-the-counter products," he said.

But it's not easy to control the policies and practices of convenience stores, most of which are independently owned and operated, says Tim O'Leary, manager of media relations for Shell Oil Co.

Shell disassociated itself from nine stores near Seattle when a community group targeted the stores for selling drug paraphernalia. O'Leary said Shell has limited control over independent operations, which make up 90 percent of the company's outlets.

"Clearly, we would come down on them like a ton of bricks," O'Leary said.

But there is no good way for corporations to track sales and activities at thousands of diverse outlets, he said. Shell is like many major corporations in that it relies on local and state law enforcement to shut down the meth trade.

But Keys and other business people who are victims of the meth phenomenon say the problem is bigger than them and bigger than the law enforcement that struggles to keep pace with meth makers' endless energy and supply stream.

"There's no way in the world that law enforcement's going to be able to knock a dent in this thing," Keys says.

Business turns to science for help

Keys puts his hope in science.

Researchers at Iowa State University and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory are working on projects designed to make anhydrous ammonia impotent in meth labs.

Kathy Mathers, vice president of public affairs for The Fertilizer Institute trade group, said the federally funded research is focused on adding a substance to fertilizer that would make it ineffective in meth labs, without changing its effects in growers' fields. While the research continues, neither project has yielded a breakthrough.

"Neither project has identified a material that would inhibit the [illegal] use while maintaining the function of the product," Mathers said.

She said the fertilizer industry has been involved for years with law enforcement's efforts to stop meth labs. The Fertilizer Institute maintains an awareness campaign among its members to educate them on ways to keep tanks away from meth makers.

But Keys said such methods, including tank locks and security cameras, only temporarily slow drug makers. Making fertilizer chemically unable to produce meth is the only solution he sees.

"That's the only way you're ever gonna stop it," Keys said.

But Mathers said the solution isn't yet clear.

"It's hard to say at this point whether this is a research solution or a law enforcement solution," she said. "We just don't know at this point."