SMITHFIELD, N.C. -- Six people arrested Tuesday as part of Operation Pill Crusher had their first court appearance Wednesday morning. Investigators say the suspects bought pseudoephedrine to help make illegal drugs.

One of the people arrested Tuesday, Amy Snead, is a teacher at Polenta Elementary School. Following her arrest, Johnston County Schools suspended her with pay. She was not in court Wednesday morning. Her attorney appeared on her behalf.

North Carolina law requires stores to keep pseudoephedrine products locked up and away from customers, forcing anyone who wants the medicine to ask an employee for it. Stores are also required to keep a log on who’s buying it. The law aims to keep people from buying large quantities of pseudoephedrine and making or cooking methamphetamines.

Before Carroll Pharmacy will sell medicine containing pseudoephedrine, pharmacist Alan Carroll or another pharmacist must approve it.

“You don't have to have a prescription, but you have to ask for anything that contains pseudophed in it,” Carroll explained.

“My message to the meth cooks is, if you're cooking, we're looking,” said Sheriff Steve Bizzell, Johnston County.

There isn’t a statewide data system to keep track of customers buying pseudoephedrine. As a result, each pharmacy has to keep its own records. That makes it easy for customers to buy the legal limit at one pharmacy and go to other pharmacies to buy more.

This summer, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office spent months investigating the customer logs from dozens of pharmacies all across the county. In those logs, agents found more than 50 people buying too much of the medicine.

Investigators wrote down customers’ names and noted each time they bought pseudoephedrine. Some people's purchase lists stretched from the ceiling to the floor. They visited several different pharmacies a day, buying the legal monthly limit at each stop.

“If you're going to make meth, use meth, sell drugs, use drugs or whatever, it's the county line or the county jail,” explained Bizzell.

Carroll Pharmacy would like to see a statewide system to keep people from pharmacy hopping to skirt the law, but until then, they're glad the Sheriff's Office is on top of it.

“It's good to know that they are taking these logs that we're keeping and using them to keep an illegal drug off the street,” Carroll said.