"If Sudafed is outlawed, only Outlaws will have Sudafed. And they WILL find a way to get it. It'll just go underground. In fact, I'm sure some drug warlord is already pulling together a plan to keep the supply coming."
That's true. There will still be meth labs. The big labs out west and in Mexico will still have their illicit sources, but it would cut way down on the number of little small batch kitchen meth labs and that would be a huge benefit at least where I live. These aren't big labs producing huge amounts of dope going through barrels and barrels of chemicals and incredible amounts of pseudoephedrine they buy in large quantities from illicit suppliers who wouldn't come anywhere near the average tweaker on the street. These are little tiny operations often producing just two or three grams or maybe a little more per batch.
These little labs are getting busted all the time where I live. If every week we are getting new meth lab or possession of paraphernalia with intent to manufacture cases then you can there are a lot more out there who aren't getting caught. I've handled a ton of these cases and I'm always getting new ones. Usually, they are only cooking up small amounts but there are several people involved gathering the pseudoephedrine and other chemicals and doing thing like scraping the strike pads off of matchbooks to get the red phosphorous. These little helpers that are always involved are helping out for free or cheap dope.
The people involved with these little small batch meth labs seem to be those becoming the worst addicts in town. If these people had to pay full price for their dope a lot of them wouldn't ever do it enough to become addicts. With these little meth labs we always seem to have four or five people hanging around getting free or extra cheap dope and with that they are able to pretty much stay high which increases dramatically the chance that they'll become addicted. It also increases the numbers of incidents we see where people do completely crazy things because they've been tweaking for days without sleep and they've become irrational and paranoid and in many cases started hallucinating. These little meth labs fuel a lot of the real problem use around here and I'd like to see the number of them diminish significantly. An 80% drop like they've seen in Oklahoma would be great.
Boy, an 80% drop would be terrific. Wisconsin has a terrible problem with it, too, mainly in north eastern Wisconsin.
http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/2005/02/24/News/Meth-Surge.Threatens.To.Engulf.Wisconsin-875961.shtml
The source of Wisconsin's meth problems lies just across the Mississippi River.
"We are experiencing it coming through the Minneapolis-St. Paul drug corridor," said Dr. Shawna Kovach, director of the L.A. Phillips Treatment Center, which is located near Eau Claire.
Eau Claire Police Department Police Chief Jerry Matysik said the Twin Cities are a major point of meth distribution.
"Much of it is imported from large 'super labs' from gangs in Mexico, Southern California and Arizona," Matysik said. He added, however, that incidents of homemade meth labs are also drastically increasing in the state.
Although a new phenomenon in Wisconsin-St. Croix County District Attorney Erik Johnson said his county, which borders Minnesota, has been dealing with methamphetamine abuse for five or six years-it has quickly spiraled out of control.
Kovach reported a statewide increase of almost 450 percent in criminal meth cases in the past five years (see chart, p. 1).
Lawmakers gasped when Matysik said meth cases in the small city of Eau Claire have increased from nine to more than 80 in just the past two years.
"Within two to three years the epidemic will reach the levels in Madison as it has in Northwestern Wisconsin," said Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, who chairs the Criminal Justice and Homeland Security Committee.
With the spread of meth into Wisconsin comes an increase in violence.
"The addiction is so high that [users] will do anything to get it," Kovach said.
"This is the largest problem, by far, that we have as law enforcement in our region," Matysik said. "We are being so overwhelmed with violence and crime and gun crime all related to methamphetamines. It's extremely frightening."
(Yes, it is extremely frightening.)