Methamphetamine Scourge Sweeps Rural America

Reuters (via Yahoo) ^ | Jan 29. 2005 | Alan Elsner

[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.

[mugs99]

The mines are mostly closed now. Our other large employer, farming, in now in the hands of the banks. There is little in the way of factories because there is no 4 lane highway access to the county and new industries won't locate here without decent highways.

Spend some of that WOD money on a highway and cheap loans to farmers. Your problem isn't drugs, it's the failure of your community to take care of itself.
...

[TKDietz]

I'm surprised that you are surprised that prisons are full of "lawlessness, gangs, and violence--the prison culture--on the inside." These are prisons where the worst people in the country are packed together. They are dangerous, scary places. People going in feel the need for protection so many join gangs, and where I live whites tend to join the white supremacy groups and blacks join the muslim brotherhood. Some of them engage in sex with other inmates in hopes that these people will protect them from others. The drug addicts still try and are often successful at getting drugs. The violent criminals remain violent. Much of the same criminal conduct that goes on on the outside goes on on the inside along with other types of criminal conduct. That's just what happens when you pack a bunch of criminals together.

One of the bad things about this is that certainly not all the people entering prisons are hardened criminals. But by the time they get out most are. These are institutions of higher criminal learning, where people learn new criminal skills and make new criminal contacts. I see an awful lot of people go to prison and get out and I tell you the rarest thing is the person who comes out better for the experience. Most seem to be worse.

I understand what you are saying about meth cooks. We have harsh laws against that where I live. People who get caught tend to go to prison for along time, especially those who do it in homes where children are present. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be doing any good, and what we are finding is that are prisons are packed beyond capacity and we can't clear out space fast enough for all of the new people sentenced to prisons. Our legislature is working right now to actually reduce the prisons sentences for these people to open up more bed space for new prisoners. We are a solid red state but some form of legislation shortening prison sentences for meth cooks is almost assuredly going to pass, out of necessity.

Other legislation that will likely pass is legislation taking psuedoephedrine out of all the gas stations, convenience stores, grocery stores, and so on and putting it behind the counters in pharmacies. Similar legislation has apparently cut the number of meth labs by 75% to 80% in Oklahoma. I'm all for it because I don't think anything else is going to put a measurable dent in the number of meth labs operating around here.

We end up representing almost all of the people caught in our county cooking meth. These people generally don't have a pot to pee in and they can't afford to hire lawyers. When I see them at first appearances or arraignments getting their bonds set or reduced, I try to warn them all that the police will be watching them because the police know as well as I do that these junkies are going to go right back to doing what they were doing. Still, knowing they're being watched and that getting caught again will only add years to their sentences, a lot of them go back out and do it again and a pretty good number of them end up getting caught again. It is not at all uncommon for me to have with two or more of these cases pending at a time. These people are hardcore drug addicts. They aren't thinking about the legal repercussions. Their addictions drive them, and everything else becomes secondary to staying high.

We can toughen laws all we want but I don't think we're going to be able to deter many of these people, not the hardcore addicts. The only good solution I can see for substantially reducing the number of little kitchen meth labs is to make it much harder to get psuedoephedrine in sufficient quantities to make cooking meth worth the trouble. We all need to take a good look at what Oklahoma is doing. Without easy access to large quantities of psuedo, these people wouldn't be able to cook dope. There are other things besides psuedoephedrine that can be converted into meth, like regular amphetamines, but they are already too difficult to get and too expensive. Psuedo is easy to get. All they have to do is get their friends together and hit every store in town and buy their limit or steal it. It needs to be sold only from behind pharmacy counters.

[OB1kNOb]

The DEA guy I spoke with once said meth can smell differently, depending on the chemicals used. One way smells like cat pee (very ammonia-like)(his words) and the other way, I can't remember what he said it smelled like. We have people on our rural road that's made it the past couple of years (it's a long, long story) and we could tell everytime they made it if the wind was blowing our way. It smelled acridly, ammonia-like or like someone burning trash. We'd call the Sheriff's dept., they'd come out and arrest them, and in less than 24 hours they'd post bail and be back home cooking another batch to pay for their bail. It's ridiculous.

[TKDietz]

"If it's the only life career perps ever know which provides food and shelter then they won't care either way. Basic raw animal instincts for living one day at a time. To them walking through revolving doors beats working for a living and provides job security for law enforcement/court system. One big seemingly endless cycle of paper shuffling."

I don't doubt that there are some people who don't mind going to prison that much, but those people are in the tiny minority of people sent to prison. I think the real problem is that most in our society have unrealistic expectations of the utility of prison as a means for controlling crime. Prison is a punishment. We use it both for general deterrence, that is to deter people out there contemplating criminal conduct from doing whatever it is they are considering doing, and we use it for specific deterrence, to deter the person who commits crime from doing it again. The notion is that the higher the possible punishments, the greater the deterrence. The problem is that this is just too simplistic a view on deterrence.

The best thing about prison is that it keeps the really bad people off the streets and away from the rest of us. That's one thing it does well, at least until the people are released, and on average nationwide most sent to prison spend just a little over two years there. We could keep them all there a whole lot longer, but the bottom line is that would bankrupt us. We already have more people behind bars in prisons and jails in this country than any other nation in the world. Apparently about 25% of all of the people behind bars in the world are behind bars here in the U.S. where we have less than 5% of the world's population. Not only do we have the greatest total number of people behind bars in the world, but we have the highest number in the world behind bars per capita, the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world.

The problem is the way we look at it, this notion that the answer to all of our problems is putting more people in prison for longer sentences. It seems that whenever we have crime problem, people all clamor for more laws and longer prison sentences. The idea is that this is supposed to scare people out of committing crimes. Politicians fall for this almost every time because it's easy for them to just put together bills increasing prison sentences, adding sentence enhancements and additional penalties, criminalizing more conduct, and so on. These are easy bills to put together and pass, and generally they tend to score points with voters. There are no real political risks involved, and the politicians can then get up and say they've really done something.

The thing is though that the length of the possible sentences is not the only important variable in determining the amount of deterrent effect of a law, not by a long shot. In fact in many cases the importance of that variable is almost completely overshadowed by other variables. One of the most important, if not the most important variable, is the perceived risk of getting caught. If there is very little risk of getting caught committing a crime, it doesn't really matter what the possible punishment is. In murder cases, for instance, in something like 60% or more of the cases there is going to be an arrest. The likelihood that people committing these crimes will be caught and punished is high. That's got to deter a lot of folks. But what percentage of pot smokings or meth snortings result in an arrest? One in thousands? The risk of getting caught committing these crimes is extremely low, so variations in the amount of possible punishment don't matter that much. I think that's why you don't see any real difference in marijuana use numbers in states that have decriminalized and treat it much like a traffic ticket and those where people face much more serious sanctions. In either jurisdiction, the risk of getting caught is so low that the variation in possible consequences doesn't matter.

Another important factor in these meth cases is that most of these people out cooking small batches and/or selling dope on the retail level are hardcore addicts. I don't know that they are deterrable. I deal with these guys all the time and when they are on a binge they are not rational people like you and me. They don't think straight. If their bonds are set high enough where they won't be able to get out, I try to wait several days before I even go and talk to them in the jail because I want them to dry out a little first so we can have more rational discussions about their cases. Even then of course a lot of these people are still reality challenged, but detoxing for a while and getting a few nights of sleep tends to get them thinking at least a little more like regular people. But when they are out there on the street and their addictions take over, they tend to go on auto-pilot on a destructive course and while they may be afraid of the law, it's barely a speed bump to them. They just keep on going, regardless of the consequences.

[TKDietz]

"It is not at all uncommon for me to have with two or more of these cases pending at a time."

This should have said: "It is not at all uncommon for me to have clients with two or more of these cases pending at a time."

[SunnySide]

"We could keep them all there a whole lot longer, but the bottom line is that would bankrupt us."


I think that is possibly because other countries don't bother with dealing with crimes and criminals like the USA does.


" We already have more people behind bars in prisons and jails in this country than any other nation in the world. Apparently about 25% of all of the people behind bars in the world are behind bars here in the U.S. where we have less than 5% of the world's population. Not only do we have the greatest total number of people behind bars in the world, but we have the highest number in the world behind bars per capita, the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world."

Again isn't that because the USA has more efficient, organized forms of dealing with broken laws and criminals. American citizens simply NEVER get the news or percentage facts about crime occuring in foreign countries. We are basically kept in the dark in that regard. I do know from the bits and pieces I've seen via our news sources which we all know by now are edited and biased and from personal accounts have opened my eyes to the daily horrors occuring outside our borders.

[TXFireman]

ping

[TruBluKentuckian]

"Spend some of that WOD money on a highway and cheap loans to farmers. Your problem isn't drugs, it's the failure of your community to take care of itself."

Again, another speaks up without a clue to the situation.

Have any idea what a 4 lane highway costs? It would have to be ~40 miles through 2 counties. Feasablility studies, land aquisition, contracting... after 5 years you might get started, then it would take another 5 years to build. Meth is a problem NOW.

I'm sorry you can't see that. I see it all too well because I live here. There's always been drugs here, but it was a managable problem until meth. It's a completely different creature.

[SunnySide]

"Have any idea what a 4 lane highway costs? It would have to be ~40 miles through 2 counties. Feasablility studies, land aquisition, contracting... after 5 years you might get started, then it would take another 5 years to build. Meth is a problem NOW."

I feel for you. You'e right about putting in a highway system. If the local people there have no money in the first place where would the tax dollars come from to build the highway. (sarcasm)Meth sales? The highway department puts down new roads if massively secured land developement is coming into the area guarantee people who would travel those roads would be new home owners, retail shoppers or tourists plunking down their cash in the same area.

[TruBluKentuckian]

The proposed new I-69 from Indianapolis to Houston is a possibility here as it could be routed through this county, but as it stands now it looks like it will be using 4 lane highways already in existance well east of here.

There's been talk of making U.S. 60 4 lanes from Henderson to Paducah, but that's been on the drawing board for 20 or more years and nothing done yet.

It takes time and time is something we don't have right now.

[mugs99]

Meth is a problem NOW

Yes, I don't deny that. But, it is a problem created by the politics of drug policy. For over fifty years we have heard the cry for more money from law enforcement. We have neglected the infrastructure to dump our tax money down the toilet of the WOD.

You can't attract business because you are not business friendly. You've lost farms to the bankers because family farmers can't turn a profit and pay off their loans. The state takes money from the rural counties, but does nothing to keep the rural counties solvent.

These are infrastructure problems. You are getting state and federal funds to reimburse your drug war costs. You have chosen the prison industry over free enterprise. You could demand state and federal highway funds, but you'd rather get the quick and easy government handout to wage a never ending drug war.
...

[TKDietz]

"Again isn't that because the USA has more efficient, organized forms of dealing with broken laws and criminals. American citizens simply NEVER get the news or percentage facts about crime occuring in foreign countries. We are basically kept in the dark in that regard. I do know from the bits and pieces I've seen via our news sources which we all know by now are edited and biased and from personal accounts have opened my eyes to the daily horrors occuring outside our borders."

I don't know about having "more efficient organized forms of dealing with broken laws and criminals." I'm not even sure what you are saying there. What do you mean by "efficient?" Are you saying our policies and methods are more effective? If so do you mean our policies and methods are more effective at reducing crime? Are they better at producing lower recidivism rates?

Personally, I think the prison growth explosion we have seen over the past thirty or so years is not such a good thing. If we look through history we can see that our incarceration rate was several times lower and had remained relatively flat from 1925 when we started collecting this data on up through the late seventies during the Carter administration when incarceration rates started taking off until they reached present levels. Our incarceration rate is still increasing, to the point where states like mine have been passing more and more bills that are actually letting prisoners out earlier because we cannot afford to continue to build new prisons and jails. Our jails and prisons are full beyond capacity and we're having to let people out early to keep up with the flow of people being sentenced to prison terms. Our jails are overflowing because they are now full of people who have already been sentenced to prison but who can't be transported until prison bed space opens up. This sort of thing is happening all over America.

We've become awfully efficient alright, efficient at locking people up. Whether we are accomplishing much good from all of this is another issue. Personally I don't think this incarceration rate increase is sustainable over the long run and my thinking is that having more and more ex cons out on the loose as we lock up up more and more new guys is such a good thing either. Prison does not change people who go there for the better. In fact it tends to do the opposite.

If you want to see the stats from other countries with respect to crime rates and incarceration rates, they're on the net. Just do a little searching and you can find about all you need to know. You don't have to rely on newspapers and TV and biased accounts. You can look up the numbers yourself and do all your own math. If you did that I think you would probably conclude that we aren't getting a good return on the investment we are making locking so many up. Other industrialized western nations seem to be doing just fine crime rate-wise with incarceration rates a fraction of ours.

[SunnySide]

What do you mean by "efficient?"

Seems U.S. law enforcement is more efficient at tracking down criminals. I think we have an explosion of incarceration due to multiple circumstances. Our country sends out mix messages regarding materialism and sexual irresponsibility to a targeted youth market combined with a lack of praise for education. Instead "GlamStyles" of the rich and infamous is constantly glorified. The uneducated impoverished see this and want to experience it too yet they don't have the dedication to get the education, skills or sacrifices required to get that desired luxurious lifestyle. It's become a nation of instant gratification regardless or the route.

[SunnySide]

or the route.


Meant to type - "of" the route

[manic4organic]

Talk about an "Extreme Makeover." Should be mandatory viewing for school kids.

[-YYZ-]

Meth users rarely show any common sense and act upon emotions.

Boy, the sound just like liberals.

Or drug warriors? (he says, while donning his flame-retardant underwear)

[MamaLucci]

Cheap heroin has become a real problem here in rural central Illinois.
Kids are dying from the stuff.

[Nowhere Man]

But I did not self destruct. I somehow gained enough humanity in growing up that the dark side was just not where I was going to end up. Though rotting at it's heart America was still basically wholesome. John Wayne was still the sort of role model most men could look up to.

Is that still true about America? I know parents generally still don't care much about their kids. They give more attention to the TV than they do their own children. I'm sure teachers are still just collecting a paycheck. Still the most poorly educated amongst all the so-called professionals. Now, however, there are no more heroes. Every sitcom on TV is brainwashing young minds into promiscuity and self destruction. Big time sports figures act like criminals or are out and out criminals.

I offer my little story above as just an average experience of a child of the sixties. What will happen to the average child of today? Will they have their romp in drugland and then grow out of it? Well from where I sit ... if you are a parent ... you better turn off that TV cause if you are just an average parent ... chances are very high that your kid is going to get blown away like a villian in a cheap action movie..

Riveting story you told there. I think what you just said is also important to where we have changed as a society. I'll be 39 this year and America seems like a different place now than I remmeber it in the 1970's or even 1980's. I'm grateful that we hold the Executive and Legislative branches although the judiciary branch is the one that needs to be weeded out, the problem is that do we have the will to do it? Like you, I wonder about the soul of America, I get the impression that we have gotten weaker in many ways in the last generation. I know this is about Meth and drugs, but that is just a part, albeit serious to all what is going on. I work in a drugstore developing photos. There are times I have to check people out when they buy general merchandise and OTC drugs. There are new laws and company policies out there that I have to adhere to such as limits on certain cold remedies I can permit in a sale as well as times I have to see if the customer is 18 or over. I asked my boss about this and he told me it is due to meth labs and others who take the remedies and make meth and God knows what else with them.

[No Blue States]

I have a modest proposal: the DEATH PENALTY for anyone producing significant quantities of methamphetamine.

I fully support your proposal. seriously.

Damn meth dealers to hell for what they do to willing people.

[TChris]

Our county here in Wyoming has a huge meth problem. One of the big enablers is the union that forces industrial employers to give up to 90 days (!!) advance warning for "random" drug tests.

A recovering meth addict spoke to our company about this and said that the only way a user can be caught at work is with a truly random test: The employees to be tested are brought, under escort, without any warning and without detour, to a large room from which they are not allowed to leave until peeing in a cup while being directly observed -- yes, it's really necessary -- by an employee of the testing center. That testing method is what finally caught this guy after over five years of faking "random" tests by various methods. Many meth users are ingenious and determined in their techniques to avoid detection.

The problem has become so widespread that Home Depot canceled construction, which had already begun, on a new store because there simply weren't enough reliable workers to sustain operations if they opened.