Methamphetamine Scourge Sweeps Rural America

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Imagine that, with $100 worth of supplies bought from neighborhood stores, dealers could easily cook up $1,000 worth of a drug so addictive that users quickly descend into a hell of violence, crime and neglect.

That frightening scenario is the reality of methamphetamine, a drug that is sweeping rural America, spawning crime, child abuse and toxic pollution and ripping apart communities.

"It is out of control. It is a huge problem all across the United States," said Mike Logsdon, unit chief of an intelligence arm of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that collects data on the problem.

The drug, also known as crank, crystal, speed and ice, can be snorted, injected, smoked or swallowed. Within minutes, the user experiences a rush of energy and sense of well-being that can last up to 12 hours. But when it wears off, it leaves a feeling of deep depression and paranoia which makes the user desperate for another dose.

The scourge has taken hold in the last five years, and rural areas are bearing the brunt of the problem. Experts say that is primarily because meth is easy and cheap to make. Ingredients include readily accessible rock salt, battery acid, anhydrous ammonia and cold medicines. Recipes can be downloaded from the Internet.

As well, wide-open spaces in the country and small towns offer plentiful places to hide the drug activity.

"It's the first drug in the history of the United States we can make, distribute, sell, take, all here in the Midwest," said Detective Jason Grellner, of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department in Missouri, who seized 120 meth labs last year.

"You can't grow a coca plantation or an opium plantation here to get your heroin or cocaine, and marijuana takes four or five months to grow a good plant. With methamphetamine you can go out and for a couple hundred dollars you can make your drugs that day," Grellner said.

The problem descended on rural America with shocking suddenness. Sheriff Randy Krukow of Clay County in western Iowa said that in 1999, he had detected not a single meth-producing laboratory. By 2001, his force had broken up 56 in a county with a population of only 18,000.

For the fiscal year ending September 2004, the Drug Enforcement Administration counted more than 16,800 methamphetamine-related seizures by law enforcement across the country, up from 15,300 in 2002.

"This is the most serious law enforcement problem we've ever faced in the history of our state because this substance is so addictive and so easy and cheap to make," said North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem.

"When we look at our prison population, 10 years ago nobody had even heard of it. Now 60 percent of our male inmates are users and we're building a brand new prison for female users," Stenehjem said.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal recently told a statewide conference on combating the drug: "It doesn't matter where we go in the state, methamphetamine is there. The whole issue is eating us alive."

According to the Drug Trends Analysis Unit, an office in the Department of Justice, the highest numbers of meth labs are found in California, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri, all important farming states.

Clandestine labs were discovered in abandoned farms, in fields and ditches, vehicles, barns and even in 309 cases in hotel rooms. In one 2002 incident in North Dakota, an explosion set off a fire which destroyed the entire hotel.

In thousands of cases, people have been caught cooking the highly toxic chemicals in homes where children were present, breathing the poisonous fumes.

But these small mobile labs only scratch the surface of the problem. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 80 percent of the methamphetamine sold in the United States is produced in so-called 'super labs' in Mexico or California run by organized crime syndicates which cook up vast quantities.

"The wholesale abuse of the drug is serious enough. But when we factor is the toxic environmental effects from unregulated chemicals used in clandestine laboratories, we see that methamphetamine is taking a terrible toll. No community is immune," Joseph Rannazzisi, deputy chief of enforcement for the DEA told a congressional committee in November.

Each pound of methamphetamines produced yields another five to six pounds of toxic waste. Cleanup after labs are discovered can cost thousands of dollars apiece and can endanger the lives of police officers who lack the expertise required.

In an effort to stem meth production, at least 20 states are now trying to limit the amount of cold medicines and decongestants they will sell to individuals to two packets at any one time. Some states are requiring stores to take them off the shelves entirely.

In future, shoppers will have to ask a pharmacist for them directly. The measures are being vigorously opposed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Faced with a growing number of addicts, few rural communities have treatment facilities or funds to create them.

The National Institute of Drug Abuse is funding clinical trials in five U.S. cities in California, Hawaii and Missouri, hoping to find chemical and behavioral therapies to free users from their addictions.

Meth's economic costs can be significant as well. A study issued last month by the Sam Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas studied methamphetamine use in Benton County, the home of retailing giant Walmart Stores Inc. The survey found that lost productivity and absenteeism because of methamphetamine addiction was costing employers there more than $21 million a year.

The "politics of drug policy" had nothing to do with it

The politics of drug policy have everything to do with it. I understand where you're coming from. I didn't realize how small you are, that's for sure. I too live in a small rural area of about 1500 more than you. We were once a thriving community, but the enviro nazis killed our mining and logging. Now the drug war in the city gets all of the attention. The county spends all the law enforcement money from the feds and state on the drug war in the city sixty miles away from us. We once had deputies in the community. We no longer do. They're needed elsewhere to fight the WOD. If I call 911 it takes a couple of hours before a deputy can make it here...that's if the weather is good and he's not busy somewhere else.

We don't have a drug problem here because when the crankster gangsters move here from the city they get harrassed by the natives and they leave.

We'd all be a lot better off if they would treat drug addiction like the public health problem it is and supply the fools who get addicted with their fix. That way they could live where they belong and we could have our deputies back...IMHO
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The one thing they have to have is psuedoephedrine

They use psuedoephedrine because we banned natural ephedrine. Before ephedrine they used other amines. We keep banning substances and they just go to another method. They could just start harvesting ephedera from the wild, but that wouldn't be as easy as switching to another available chemical, and there are many.

Banning substances that can be used for making drugs does not work and it raises the cost of living for all of us. A good example is leather. American leather was not only high quality, it was inexpensive. We tanned with methylamine gas. Methylamine was banned because some were using it to make methamphetamine. Now that we tan with chrome, leather is expensive and very low quality. If you want to work with good leather you now have to buy imported. But, I guess that's ok if you like plastic shoes from WalMart!
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Oregon loggers got put to death too which had a domino effect.

Now that logging contract have started back up the logging contracts are being imported from Idaho.

No logging companies to hire for the big contracts and it was cheaper to import loggers. Go figure.

The enviro whackos may have disrupted life for a decade but the balance is coming back IMO

Some good did come out of their intentions, we are better conservationists without being extreme now.

Ordinary folks think about using biofreindly moss killer and such living next to the bay. And I for one recycle because my garbedge bill and the sanitary co. provides a 90 gallon wheeled container that makes it easy to do.

Also the drug war has corruption in the govt as well IMO.

We always vote no on new taxes and are threatened with prisoner releases and police cut backs. Well that did not last long out in our rural area.

Our community had a Meth Summit and we as citizens are bootin' them out along with businesses joining in.

Just recently we have had additional City police, County and State Troopers added and all three work together.

If a deputy is on North County for a call a State Trooper will cover and if the call is a biggee all three show.

It is not done with cops harrassing anyone but if you are an ass**** fighting in public they are now there quick and if the two fighting choose not to be "victims" of each other they are sent on their way.

New leaders, Chiefs ect. have started kicking the scum back into their transient camps.

We also have thorough instant background checks on those being ID.

Parolee's with no Bar, no child contact come up instantly in ID checks and being a small town/county the cops know if you have been to the local bar and do report it to your probation officer. Same for DWS or uninsured, warrents, ect. Plus it is multistate.

I noticed some people they know by car and name and keep tabs on these non civil citizens.

Sounds like a police state almost but those of us who are law abiding, responsible adults are not bothered by it and like the idea that our once crime free area that has gotten out of control in the last five years is now getting a handle on the low lifes and we are taking back our streets.

And all without the legislators raising our taxes.

I have also noticed citizens with cells turning in drunk drivers and by looking out for rif raff in each of our nieghborhoods have interupted many crimes in progress.

No one is complaining that our privacy at home is invaded. Usually calls to homes come from the individuals home for domestic and the civil or crime lines are cleary respected.

If I in the privacy of my own home want to enjoy a good wine and go skinny dipping in my pool, smoke a cigar (haven't in years) it is my private right and no one gives a crap.

But if I decide to drink untill I am visibly drunk and drive go to the local hotel and use their pool as a non guest and be disruptive in public then I will have a problem.

Oh and I can say the F work all I want in my home as a stress reliever but I would expect a problem if in public I yelled with rage at someone to go F themselves with families and kids around.

Each pound of methamphetamines produced yields another five to six pounds of toxic waste.

Yeah, besides the amount of the toxic waste that they end up selling!

My sister runs an alternative sentencing program for drug users in S. MS. She is amazed at the devastation caused by this drug. She even had a client who ended up in the hospital with a fever of 105 degrees after having contracted a bacterial infection; the girl thinks it was from a bad batch of meth cooked up by her boyfriend. She was almost on the verge of death, but still told my sister that she didn't think she could give up the drugs! Now THAT'S an addiction! After having to have a couple of fingers amputated, the girl decided that maybe she could give up the crap after all.

My sister says it is hard to get people clean from this stuff. They really have to want to get off of it, and remove themselves from their old way of life so the temptations to party with their friends is lessened. She's had some successes, but some failures as well. You'd think these folks would be motivated to keep clean in her program because if they don't, they're sent to Parchman prison! But she still has folks who think they can fool her and get away with it. They're wrong because she tests them twice a week with some very sensitive equipment that not only checks for meth and marijuana, it even tests for medications in over the counter drugs that addicts try to use when they can't get their meth, and they're told in advance that they're not supposed to use.

So I am curious. Druggies are usually the ones thieving,forging,shoplifting,squatting ect.

What reason other than fire, ambulance car accidents have first responders, murder of a spouse/family member, domestic violence, would you call 911 for.

We have our share of crime from people passing through, but domestic violence is number one. I have a neighbor whose husband hits her everytime he gets drunk. She runs down to our house screaming for help. He shows up soon after and is a real handful. I'm too old for this crap. I need a deputy to lock this guy up so I can get some sleap on Saturday night!

We had a wave of crank cooks and they were a problem. They just had a lot of bad luck, and left. We've become wary of newcomers and that isn't a good thing, but it works.

First responders here are volunteers. Not as bad as it sounds. The community supports the volunteers and contributes enough money so they get trained. All have firefighter 1 certificates and four are para medics.

We have never had a murder of a spouse/family member, but we do have domestic violence. Alcohol is the culprit here when it comes to domestic violence. The only murder we had was when one crank cook killed another. That's when the community decided they had to go.

Our druggies consist mainly of old pot smoking hippies, and they aren't a problem. We do also have several who grow their own medical marijuana and they aren't a problem either. If anyone here is using hard drugs they keep it to themselves as we have no problem from hard drug users.

We do have our share of problems from drunk teens, mainly drunk driving and fighting. Pot use among the teens here is not uncommon, but I think that's true everywhere. Hullicinogenic mushrooms grow wild here, but the kids here just don't care for them. The people you see gathering them are from the city. We don't care about the shroom pickers, they give us a good laugh...The shrooms grow on cow turds.

We have over two hundred K thru 8 kids in our school, but we have no gun violence or accidental shootings even though they all live in homes with guns.

We used to have forest service work centers. They maintained roads and trails to campgrounds and other recreational areas. They also provided summer jobs for teens. The money for work centers and camp grounds now goes to the WOD. All but one campground has closed and the one that is open is serviced rarely. It has become a hangout for homeless winos during the summer so we don't derive any benefit from having it open.

The War On Drugs has done nothing to make our community a better place.
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I am not suggesting that we ban psuedoephedrine, or anything else for that matter. All I am suggesting is that we put it behind the counters in pharmacies to make it more difficult for people to go all over town buying or stealing it from this store and that store collecting enough to go out and cook batches of dope. People would still be able to get psuedoehedrine, it's just that for some psuedoephedrine products they'd have to go to the pharmacy counter. That's not such a big deal. But in Oklahoma meth lab seizures are down about 80% since they enacted those laws. It's working.

Look, there are not that many things that can be converted into meth. The reason all the little kitchen meth cooks use psuedoephedrine is because that's the one thing left that isn't controlled and/or prohibitively expensive. I think it would be possible for people to grow ephedra and then extract ephedrine from the plants, but that would be a hell of an involved process that would take too long, require too much work, and end up costing too much in the long run for most of these people out there cooking up all the small batches dope in their homes, hotels, or wherever they can find a place to cook up a batch.

As we can see with Oklahoma's results, putting psuedoephedrine tablets behind pharmacy counters substantially reduces the number of little small batch kitchen meth labs. They saw an 80% drop and instead of seeing more people go to prison for cooking dope, they saw a huge drop in drug lab arrests. That's good all the way around. Why you get your feathers ruffled over something like this is beyond me.

Look, there are not that many things that can be converted into meth. The reason all the little kitchen meth cooks use psuedoephedrine is because that's the one thing left

I'm happy crank cooks have dropped 80% in Oklahoma. But, it's only temporary. I could list dozens more things that can be converted into meth. I won't for obvious reasons. They will find the next one soon enough.

All those little kitchen meth cooks were using phenylpropanolamine, (diet pills) before it was controlled and they switched to psuedoephedrine. Now the once $1.79 a bottle diet pills are going for $150.00 a bottle on TV.

Control always leads to higher prices. I'll admit I don't know what the solution is to this meth problem, but someone needs to come up with a better plan. We had far fewer using speed when you could buy bennies at truck stops. Strict drug control has given us an increase in users and an increase in violent crime...The same as alcohol prohibition.
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"The obvious reasons are legal, and against the rules of FreeRepublic. I find it interesting that you have to resort to ridicule when you can't support your view."

I don't think there is anything illegal or against FreeRepublic rules about backing up your assertions with examples, even in this specific case where we are talking about possible substitutes for psuedoephedrine in the manufacture of methamphetamine. I didn't ask you to provide recipes. I'm not trying to ridicule you either, I just don't want you to get away with using some "if I told you I'd have to kill you excuse" for not backing up your assertion. I mean really, if there were adequate substitutes for psuedoephedrine that the average guy on the street could easily obtain in sufficient quantities for use in methamphetamine production it would be all over the web already. There are tons of websites out there giving detailed instructions for manufacturing methamphetamine using virtually every method known to man. I've looked at an awful lot of them doing research for cases of mine in which people were charged with possession of "paraphernalia" with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. It is my understanding that there really aren't any viable alternatives for kitchen meth cooks for psuedoephedrine, and it seems a little on the hokey side that you would argue there are such substances but you can't name them for "obvious reasons." I could be wrong though.

I tell you what Mugs, I don't believe you know of any substances that could easily replace psuedoephedrine in small batch kitchen meth labs. If you know of any and truly feel uncomfortable publishing them on an open forum, tell me about it via private message. If you can show me there is any merit to your assertions, I'll come right back to this thread and issue a public apology. Not only that, I'd probably change my mind about adopting Oklahoma's laws, write my politicians, and join you in arguing against similar laws in other states.

I'm not looking for a public apology or a letter writing campaign. Stopping the sale of cold tablets will result in bigger meth operations. Psuedoephedrine and ephedrine are both legally available in Canada. Small time cooks will buy smuggled ephedrine in larger quantities than they're using now. Meth production will increase. Some may even harvest ephedra where it grows wild right here in America. The ephedrine can be easily extracted by simply making a tea from the plant. Process as usual in your crock pot with red phosphorus and iodine.

If you are processing cases involving precursers, I find it hard to believe you don't know just how available phenylacetones are in industrial quantities. The kitchen cooks may not have discovered this, but I bet it won't take them long once their limited cold tablet supply dries up.

The stuff they're making now is soda pop compared to the pure crystal meth they'll be cranking out when they get out of the kitchen and into the big time.
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She has custody, isn't that special...

No surprise. The greatest enablers are the social serpents. This gives extra control to them, more funding via greater caseload, and opportunity for expansion/advancement.

A great number of crank addicts, locally known as 'chicken' heads, for the drug's street name in this locale, go through a mere 30 day treatment program. Definitely not enough, even for detox, for some of them. Recividism rates are ridiculously high.

This is not the old '60's Methedrine, but some concoction whipped up in a bucket using cold remedies, lithium batteries, and a host of other chemical junk.

Not too hard to spot the skinny, shaky, people with wierd behaviour and really bad teeth.

It is every bit as bad as alcoholism, but takes far less time to hit critical mass.

Good luck getting the kids, for their sake.

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