Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2003
Source: LSU Reveille (LA Edu)
Copyright: 2003, LSU Reveille
Contact:  http://www.lsureveille.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2879
Author: Nancy Malone
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

A BURNING ISSUE

Meth Use Hits Home In South Louisiana

The first time Darren used the drug, he was terrified. Terrified he might 
overdose.

Terrified he might get all freaked out.

Terrified because he didn't know what crystal meth, or methamphetamine, 
might do to him.

After he watched a friend do it and nothing bad happened, Darren Brown, a 
Donaldsonville native, decided he would try it.

His reasoning was simple.

"I've tried other drugs, and this one didn't bother my friend," he said. 
Brown said he even liked how his friend acted: hyper, excited, like he 
wanted to do a lot of things.

So despite his initial fear, Brown tried crystal meth one night while 
attending a party, and he liked it.

"It made me hyperactive. I wanted to do a lot of things, be active," he 
said. "The high lasted a long time, and it didn't take much of the drug."

Methamphetamine, a psychomotor stimulant or "upper," is a highly addictive 
drug with usage on the rise in Louisiana, one of the last areas of the 
middle United States to show signs of a meth epidemic.

It's cheaper than cocaine, easily produced, leaves users with incredible 
energy and prompts a longer high.

It's hooked people up for decades, but its recent popularity has soared 
eastward across the United States, originating in Hawaii and California. It 
has become a major problem in rural states, including Iowa, Missouri and 
Kansas.

Government officials nationwide say meth ruins more lives, drains more law 
enforcement agents and court systems, harms more children and wreaks more 
social damage than cocaine and heroin.

And now it's here, say Louisiana law enforcement agents.

Meth usage up sharply

Arrests and drug busts in the first half of 2002 show a marked increase in 
meth use in Louisiana. State officials busted 14 clandestine meth labs in 
homes, garages, sheds and other locations in 2001; they had busted 60 meth 
labs halfway through 2002.

North Louisiana and the Florida parishes have shown the most meth-related 
activity in the state.

U.S. Attorney David Dugas of the Middle District Court in Baton Rouge said 
he knew Louisiana was on the brink of an epidemic when the Drug Enforcement 
Agency recorded eight lab seizures in the first six months of 2002. Local 
law enforcement agencies gathered at a meth summit counted more than 50 lab 
seizures for the same time frame.

"At that point, we knew we had to treat it as an epidemic," Dugas said.

The increase mimicked the nature of other states' epidemics.

Dugas said he recently has indicted people in five meth cases, but his 
office hasn't released the records because of ongoing investigations into 
related users, producers or drug rings. He expects to prosecute 15 to 20 
cases in the next few weeks.

The Narcotics Division of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office made 
several meth arrests in the past year, and the first of those will go to 
court in the next few weeks.

The Tri-Parish Task Force, covering some of the Florida parish region, saw 
some of its first convictions in August, when Michael McCarroll got 30 
years in prison for possession and production of Schedule II drugs, namely 
methamphetamine. Meth, cocaine, GHB and Oxycodone are drugs classified as 
Schedule II, meaning rarely used in accepted medical treatment.

What is Meth?

Meth is a white, odorless, bitter-tasting powder that dissolves easily in 
water. It may turn different colors, commonly red, yellow and green, based 
on the chemical reaction of the ingredients or materials used in the 
process, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is a 
synthetically produced central nervous system stimulant.

Meth can be made in small homemade labs, called clandestine labs, or 
mass-produced in a different process in superlabs, commonly found in Mexico 
and in isolated areas in the U.S. West. Clandestine labs can produce 
between a few ounces and two pounds in one batch, and superlabs can produce 
10 pounds in 24 hours.

One reason meth is gaining in popularity is that it is easy to make.

"It's so easy to produce. Everything can be found at the local Wal-Mart or 
dollar store, except for ammonia [a key ingredient in one production 
method] that is being stolen from wholesale sellers and farmers," said Vic 
Marler, a Tri-Parish Task Force officer, encompassing St. Tammany, 
Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes.

Marler said meth's popularity in north Louisiana and the Florida parishes 
is soaring as crack dealers turn to meth, making more money on a drug that 
can be produced almost anywhere with simple ingredients.

Brown's story

Brown said he felt paranoid and began watching around him for others while 
he was high on meth.

"I thought people were there and talking about me when I knew they 
weren't," Brown said.

He said it scared him, and when he began coming down from his high, he 
hated the feeling that he couldn't catch his breath and immediately went 
back for more to continue the high.

Brown tried the drug a third time when the opportunity arose at a party. He 
remembered the things he didn't like about meth, but he said he wanted the 
fix of being high.

Brown now lives in a halfway house in Baton Rouge and is working to stay 
clean from narcotics and alcohol.

Looking back on his meth use, he said he's still worried about the dangers 
of using. He realizes now that the dealers were using the people at the 
party as guinea pigs.

He questioned the purity and safety of the meth after seeing the materials 
used to make it, especially the ammonia.

"I knew it was a big risk, but I did it anyway," Brown said. "I say I 
wouldn't do it again while I'm clear-headed, but I'm not sure."

But, Brown doesn't fit State Police's characterization of most meth users 
or some local law enforcement agents' description.

Brown, an African-American man, is in his mid-20s. According to State 
Police, average Louisiana meth users are white and in their late teens, 
30s, 40s and 50s. But north Louisiana is seeing a rise in college-age users.

"But drugs cross all racial lines and culture," said Lt. William Davis, a 
State Police public information officer. "Everyone has a reason to use."

Although Brown snorted the meth to get his high, the drug can be injected, 
ingested and smoked.

Meth causes users to become confused and sometimes paranoid, as recent 
arrest records show.

A man arrested and brought to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office 
was relieved two weeks ago to learn that the image of Mel Gibson from 
"Braveheart" and a large sword that he saw after his arrest were real.

The man said he was "seeing all sorts of weird things and couldn't 
distinguish reality among them," said Capt. Shane Evans of the East Baton 
Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office Narcotics Division.

In St. Tammany Parish, a man sleeping while he was brewing methamphetamine 
in August called 911 after he dreamed someone was trying to kill him. 
Police said the man appeared to be in a delusional state when they arrested 
him.

Meth comes in many forms

Commonly called speed, crystal or glass, meth's most common form in 
Louisiana and the United States is the powder because of the ease of 
production. It's known as crystal meth and often is produced in clandestine 
labs using the "Nazi production" method, named for the historical use of 
the drug in Nazi-controlled Germany.

Dugas said officers must keep up with the spread of the drug and try to 
stay ahead.

People are learning to produce the meth from online sources and from others.

Marler, a task force officer, said he heard of people coming from Arkansas, 
where law enforcement was beginning to make a large numbers of arrests, to 
throw "tailgating parties" to teach people how to cook the meth, charging 
$100 to $400 per lesson.

Capt. Evans said the online recipes are easy to find but often are 
simplified or incomplete processes, which can be dangerous considering the 
volatile state of chemicals used to make meth.

Lithium, found in camera batteries; ephedrine and pseudophedrine, or common 
cold medicines; red phosphorous, found on matches; ether; iodine; and 
anhydrous ammonia are common ingredients in the Nazi-production method, 
Marler said.

Utensils of mason jars, coffee filters, hot plates or other heat sources, 
pressure cookers, pillowcases, plastic tubing and gas cans are common 
ingredients that can be found at retail or convenience stores. Still, the 
anhydrous ammonia must be stolen from farmers or wholesale distributors.

"The growing use of the Internet, which provides access to methamphetamine 
recipes, coupled with increased demand for high-purity product, has 
resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of mom-and-pop laboratories 
throughout the United States," according to the Drug Enforcement Agency's 
Intelligence Reports.

A paranoid high

A small amount of methamphetamine can produce a long-lasting high and cause 
fits of paranoia.

Doctors and drug abuse institutes have identified a long list of 
meth-related effects, including hypertension, aggressiveness, nervousness, 
nausea, sweating, palpitations, dryness of mouth, hot flashes, insomnia, 
irritability and even death.

Depending on how meth is taken, highs can occur within minutes and last up 
to 24 hours.

Meth produces these highs by acting on dopamine levels in the brain. 
Dopamine, a chemical messenger similar to adrenaline, plays an important 
role in the regulation of pleasure. Drugs that affect dopamine typically 
are highly addictive, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 
Meth increases the dopamine levels, while depressing receptors. After 
prolonged use, normal levels of dopamine make you feel depressed, U.S. 
Attorney Dugas said.

"At that point, the drug has altered the brain so much that the user needs 
the drug to avoid feeling bad," said Dugas, who has studied meth for years. 
He became especially interested after a convention with other U.S. 
attorneys, where he learned the biggest problem facing most districts was 
residents' methamphetamine use.

The federal attorneys described how users' delusions and fits of paranoia 
and violence were wreaking havoc in communities as murders, suicides and 
other violent acts rose.

These long-term effects also include dependence and addiction psychosis, 
mood disturbances, strokes and weight loss.

But East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Capt. Evans said users don't see beyond the 
short-term effects, which include increased attention and activity, 
decreased fatigue and appetite, euphoria, increased respiration and 
hyperthermia.

"They just don't see the cooks having no teeth or wrinkling prematurely," 
Evans said.

Users see they have the energy to complete tasks, don't have to stop and 
eat, and aren't tired or fatigued.

As other stimulants, meth produces these same behavioral and physiological 
effects, such as how it accumulates the neurotransmitter dopamine and how 
this excessive dopamine concentration produces the feeling of euphoria.

However, it's quite different from other stimulants, such as cocaine, in 
the way it acts on the body.

Meth is man-made and has limited medical use; cocaine is plant-derived and 
used as a local anesthetic in some surgical procedures.

"In contrast to cocaine, which is quickly removed and almost completely 
metabolized in the body, methamphetamine has a much longer duration of 
action and a larger percentage of the drug remains unchanged in the body," 
according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

This means meth stays in the brain longer, prolonging the stimulant effects 
and killing more brain cells.

"Like it or not, it just makes you stupid," Evans said.

State Police bulk up

Meth now is competing with marijuana as the state's drug of choice, 
according to the DEA, and state law enforcement is reacting to the change.

Law enforcement is receiving more training in looking for, identifying and 
busting meth labs. The number of seizures have increased from one lab each 
in 1996 and 1997 to 14 labs each in 2000 and 2001, according to the DEA.

State Police, city and parish police departments and task forces highly 
trained in catching methamphetamine users don't deny they're missing busts 
because of some officers' lack of education. However, they say they're 
arresting more people and disposing of more meth labs.

"Where GHB is of the new century, meth is the speed of the new millennium 
because it can be made here," Evans of the Sheriff's Office said.

Livingston, Tangipahoa and St. Tammany parishes are being inundated with 
meth production and use, as well as north Louisiana, likely because of 
their largely isolated areas, Davis with State Police said.

Evans said the areas of increase show the movement of the drug and recipes 
for production across state lines from Arkansas and Mississippi. "Law 
enforcement agents were amazed by the meth stories in neighboring states," 
Evans said. "Our agents often are sent outside Louisiana for school and 
training," he said, which has helped improve the number of arrests.

Davis said State Police has teamed with local law enforcement agencies in a 
"constant sharing relationship" to educate residents -- kids, moms, school 
bus drivers, executives, anyone who'll listen -- about awareness, the drug, 
manufacturing of it and dangers.

"Sometimes we're too sheltered in our own world and need to hear about 
what's going on," Davis said.

The rapid rise of the dangerous drug and production methods calls for 
people to be more educated and help law enforcement, he said.

Meth's increase in the state also has called for a new system in reporting 
the number of arrests and busted labs. State Police now is the 
clearinghouse for all law enforcement agencies in Louisiana before the 
state's information is sent to the El Paso Intelligence Center, a DEA 
cooperative established to collect, process and disseminate intelligence 
information concerning illicit drugs.

EPIC helped state law enforcement agencies start to track meth on a more 
uniform basis.

"Snags still exist in the reporting, but more cases are coming through with 
numbers of arrests and labs located and destroyed," Davis said.

Dugas with the U.S. Attorney's office said it has been difficult getting 
law enforcement agents to fill out the EPIC reports, so the numbers 
reported certainly are smaller than actual figures.

"But we've fixed the problem substantially as we're starting to get in 
reports," Dugas said.

The cases reported predominantly are of clandestine labs, though there are 
signs of the drug originating outside the state, he said.

Interstate 10, a general drug pipeline from California to Florida, probably 
is the main source of meth entering the state, Dugas said about an area 
that law enforcement agents have to become more keen about looking for 
signs of traffickers and asking questions.

Campus police keep watch of approaching meth problem

A custodian at Southern Methodist University in Texas made a discovery late 
last month that most Louisiana university police officers say they might 
never catch.

While cleaning in a music practice room on SMU's campus, the custodian 
found a box filled with a Bunsen burner, two open containers still with 
residue inside and a flask.

SMU Chief of Police Aaron Graves said this bust is the first of its kind on 
the SMU campus. He said officers are familiar with controlled substances in 
general but may not have thought anything of the materials found other than 
the location of the chemicals was alarming.

In Texas, 575 meth labs like the SMU one were found in 2001 and reported to 
the Drug Enforcement Agency. However, during that same time frame, 
Louisiana reported only 14 meth labs.

Local law enforcement recently focused on educating campus police 
departments of items associated with meth and its production.

"Campus police officers probably wouldn't recognize the materials used to 
make meth," said Capt. Ricky Adams of the LSU Police Department.

Adams said his officers haven't had training with methamphetamines. He said 
that when it comes to narcotics, he usually refers questions and cases of 
narcotics to Evans.

LSU administrators on campus, including Dean of Students Kevin Price, say 
they also are aware of news reporting the rise in meth use, although they 
haven't seen evidence of it on campus yet.

Nonetheless, Price said the cost of having meth or a meth lab on campus is 
steep. Beyond criminal charges, students also may be removed from the 
University for violating the school Code of Conduct for illegal 
manufacture, sale, distribution, possession or use of illegal substances.

Though no absolute punishment exists for breaking this code, Price said 
students who have come through his office for alleged manufacture, sale, 
distribution, possession or use of illegal drugs, mostly marijuana, have 
been kicked off campus. But if they dispute the charge, they may request a 
due process hearing.

Other in-state schools have similar codes of conduct concerning drugs that 
lead to disciplinary action, and law enforcement at most have had greater 
training than at LSU.

Police at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Southern University and 
Southeastern Louisiana University have had varying degrees of training in 
looking for methamphetamines or clandestine labs and items used in 
producing meth at home or in small locations. None reported any on-campus 
arrests or busts related to methamphetamine.

Police at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and Northwestern State 
University could not be reached for comment. However, Davis said users in 
their early 20s are beginning to increase in north Louisiana.

Capt. Harold Todd, assistant director of campus police at Southeastern 
Louisiana University, said his officers participated in drug identity 
courses and met with representatives of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Todd said with the rising number of meth lab busts in Tangipahoa, 
Livingston and other parishes surrounding SLU, the campus police department 
has been more aware of drug use on campus but still received no complaints 
related to meth production or use.

Meth gains edge moving across Midwest, nation

What's described in Louisiana as a growing problem ranks dismally in 
comparison to other states' busted labs and meth seizures.

According to numbers reported to the Drug Enforcement Agency for 2001, 
Louisiana had 14 clandestine meth lab busts and 1.4 kilograms of meth seized.

In the West, where the epidemic began, California reported 1,872 labs and 
1,282.3 kilograms, and Oregon reported 584 labs and 54 kilograms.

As the drug moved eastward and inundated the Midwest, states such as 
Missouri showed numbers nearly doubling some reported on the West Coast. 
Missouri reported 2,207 labs and 14.8 kilograms, while Iowa reported 553 
labs and 79.7 kilograms.

Compared to surrounding states, Louisiana had drastically lower numbers, 
possibly indicating a slow entrance of meth into the state, law enforcement 
agents not addressing the problem thus not producing the busts, agents 
doing such a good job that labs are difficult to start or a severe lag in 
reporting the busts to the DEA.

Texas reported 575 labs and 451.9 kilograms. Arkansas reported 366 labs and 
9.2 kilograms. Mississippi reported 201 labs and 1.5 kilograms. And Alabama 
reported 163 labs and 17.2 kilograms of meth.

Regardless of the numbers, the rise and spread of meth in communities and 
across the United States has hit record highs, according to the DEA. As 
East Coast states still see lower numbers, similar to those in Louisiana in 
2001, law enforcement must prepare for the inevitable meth rise in their areas.

DEA officials in Louisiana say meth is going at $100 to $150 per gram, 
about the same price as cocaine in the area.

U.S. Attorney Dugas said the progression of the drug across states has 
helped the more eastern states, including Louisiana, in determining how to 
address the expected problem.

"We don't have to reinvent the wheel," Dugas said. "We were able to get up 
to speed pretty quickly with [other states'] help."

Conclusion

Evans said clubs, which mostly are located away from campus areas, 
especially in Baton Rouge, are beginning to show signs of meth use among 
attendants. Marijuana arrests on and near campus occur most frequently, 
Evans said, "but we're watching."

"We're now seeing young people at clubs mixing GHB [commonly known as a 
date-rape drug or downer] with meth, the new speed [or upper]," Evans said.

This mix could be dangerous because of the countering effects on the body, 
he said.

Evans and federal agents said they're pleased meth use hasn't caught on yet 
with the college crowd.

"At that age, you don't want to get caught up in the federal system," said 
Dugas, referring to the consequences of 20-year-olds getting busted for 
meth use. "We'll be looking."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom