Posted on 01/29/2005 10:32:26 PM PST by Mr. Mojo
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.
SWIFT AND SERIOUS
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.
'SUPER LABS'
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.
I don't get it... I'm trying to figure this out.
I've done far too many drugs, admittedly, but every time I started feeling *compelled* to do them, I'd quit. I just didn't want ANYTHING controlling my life, and I didn't care WHAT it was - my parents, the Government, the schools, drugs, religion, you name it - ANYTHING.
I tried meth twice and whatever the high, I felt so rotten coming down off it that I have never for the life of me understood why somebody would take MORE of it to stop feeling rotten. For God's sake, just QUIT TAKING the stuff!
I'm missing something here... I mean, really - I just don't get it.
Thank you. I read through all the wailing and hand wringing and was wondering where the heck the sane people went. The only thing worse than WOD propaganda is all the neophytes who parrot it.
There are Meth labs all over rural Montana, it's a problem that has gotten way out of hand. I remember when Meth labs only existed in the urban centers of Montana. this was 20 years ago. There have been several Meth labs busted about an hour or so south of me.
So what are you two proposing?
You laugh and scoff at people ingesting battery acid. I've read countless stories in the local press of kids as young as 12 or younger sniffing paint fumes and walking around with spray cans of cleaning solutions, because they can get high sniffing the fumes from that too.
Crawl back to DU you piece of liberal scum.
Mark
I see alot of glad handing and backslapping between the two of you, and agreeing that those who disagree with you two are a bunch of Nazi's. What I don't see is you two wise-asses proposing any solutions to the "problem".
Don't do drugs. That might sound simplistic, but all the people I know in my rural area don't do drugs and don't let their kids do them either.
That's for the suggestion!!!!
I'd still vote to execute any cooker/dealer. I had to deal with the results of their efforts and criminal acts for 20 years. Thank God my kids didn't get involved, but I saw thousands of other children who didn't have a 'connected' father who did.
When did I call anyone a Nazi? The first step towards a solution is to realistically assess the problem and take steps within your local area. For example, if I knew someone in my neighborhood had a lab I would work with my neighbors and HOA (not the police) to make them clean up their act. It's not different from any other antisocial behavior.
Thank you for your suggestion. Would you execute them yourself or have someone else do it?
If you're calling someome who calls everyone in this thread a Nazi, sane, you yourself are unknowingly saying the word Nazi.
BS. I wouldn't. Tampering with evidence is also a crime. I sure as hell wouldn't get HOA involved if they were as ill-equipped as the neighbors. I wouldn't get involved, and I wouldn't want my neighbors getting involved. I'll let those who know what the hell they're doing get involved.
I can't believe people sometimes.
It's amazing to hear what people are using now...
There's a "drug" that's known as "water." It's formaldahyde! And there are people who dip cigarettes in it, dry them, and then smoke it! YIKES!!!!
Mark
As dangerous as a drunk guy shooting off his porch? There are lots of things we handle in our neighborhood that are precursors to the same antisocial behavior as meth labs. By stopping people from messing up the neighborhood in smaller ways we prevent bigger problems.
"Tacoma WA would give rural MO a run for the money. Even up here on Whidbey Is. the problem isn't insignificant."
I live in Graham, WA (in same county as Tacoma) and can vouch for Pierce County as having to be the meth lab capital of the universe.
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