Pubdate: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 Source: Tribune Review (Pittsburgh, PA) Copyright: 2005 Tribune-Review Publishing Co. Contact: http://triblive.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/460 Authors: Richard Byrne Reilly, and Mike Wereschagin Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) METH LAB INGREDIENTS EASY TO PURCHASE IN STORES It Was An Odd Shopping List, But No One Seemed To Notice. Brake cleaner, rock salt, iodine, three boxes of cold pills, paint thinner - -- and four other ingredients used to make methamphetamine. The list was shown to six employees of a major discount retailer in North Fayette, including a pharmacist. They simply pointed the customer to the correct aisles. This is the sort of thing that keeps federal agents awake at night. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is now asking retailers to teach their employees how to spot people who buy large quantities of the everyday products that can be cooked and combined to make meth, a highly addictive stimulant that is inhaled in powder form or injected as a liquid. "We're seeking voluntary compliance," said Special Agent Andy Petyak, who runs the DEA's anti-meth efforts in Pittsburgh. "We're saying that if somebody comes into a Home Depot and buys six gallons of acetone (a solvent), give us a call." That will lead to more busts for law enforcement agents, but it's no cure for the plague of meth production, which has become something of a cottage industry in cities and states across the nation. "It had been tried here," said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, a sort of state version of the DEA. A decade of education and voluntary limits on meth ingredients helped police find more meth labs, but it didn't stop their spread. "It does nothing to actually stem the tide." That tide turned for Oklahoma law enforcement a year ago Wednesday. That's when the state became the nation's first to put pills containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine -- widely used in cold and allergy pills and essential to making meth -- behind the counter at pharmacies. Now, if you want to buy the pills in Oklahoma, you have to show a driver's license and sign a ledger at the pharmacist's window. Meth production in the state, which had increased 1,200 percent during the 1990s, fell by more than 50 percent in the first 11 months after the law passed. In February, for instance, 39 meth labs were busted in the state, down from 120 in February 2004. Meth cooks caught stealing pseudoephedrine in Oklahoma's neighboring states have told police, "I can't get this in Oklahoma," Woodward said. The DEA has no illusions of stopping the spread of meth labs in Pittsburgh just by educating store clerks, Petyak said. Agents in Kansas City, Mo., uncover six to seven labs a week, and though the problem is not nearly as severe in Western Pennsylvania, it is a growing one. The number of meth labs found by state police has ballooned from 19 in 2001 to 128 last year. In February, authorities raided a suspected meth lab in Shadyside, arresting an off-duty Ross police officer and three others. Police uncovered labs in Beltzhoover and McKees Rocks last year and in Mt. Washington and Brighton Heights in 2003. Methamphetamine labs, once found only in the nation's rural West, have become smaller and gradually are migrating eastward and into cities. The smallest labs -- called box labs -- can fit in a backpack, the trunk of a car or can quickly be set up in a motel room, according to the U.S. Justice Department. State Reps. John Evans and Matthew Good, both Erie Republicans, have proposed five bills to restrict the purchase of pseudoephedrine. The level of regulation varies from limiting the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can buy to adopting Oklahoma's system of keeping the medicine behind pharmacists' counters. State Sen. Bob Regola, R-Hempfield, says he plans to introduce legislation similar to Oklahoma's. "It's definitely an issue, and it's something I'm very concerned about," he said yesterday. "Something has to be done." Regola said he's reviewing the regulations in other states and that his proposal will aim to restrict access to certain products without hurting retailers. Since April 6, 2004, Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky and Tennessee passed legislation mirroring Oklahoma's, and Kansas lawmakers are poised to do the same within weeks. The governor of Oregon skipped the legislature and enacted restrictions similar to Oklahoma's through an emergency executive order, Woodward said. If the General Assembly pursues legislation like Oklahoma's, it better be ready for the pressure from drug company lobbyists, Woodward said. Pharmaceutical lobbyists, a giant force in public policy, urged sticking to "education, voluntary limits on product purchases, stuff we already tried," Woodward said. "All their arguments were pretty weak, but they had a lot of money at stake," he said. "We had seen a 1,200 percent increase in the purchase of pseudoephedrine. . We had not seen a 1,200 percent increase in the number of head colds." Drug companies said they were being targeted while the makers of other ingredients were left unregulated. But other products are useless without pseudoephedrine, Woodward said. Cooking meth basically entails removing the oxygen and hydrogen molecules from cold pills, then turning the remaining product into a powder. It's a volatile process that can blow up a house or hotel if something goes wrong, and contaminate a neighborhood with fumes. Fear of a meth lab next door isn't what finally pushed the bill through in Oklahoma, though. State Troopers Nik Green, Matthew Evans and David "Rocky" Eales died trying to arrest meth addicts. Opponents backed down after supporters proposed naming the law in their honor and their widows began sitting in on committee hearings, Woodward said. In the Pittsburgh area, DEA officials have begun meeting with managers from the local branches of retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and Sheetz, and pharmacy chains such as Eckerd and CVS. At some stores in Cranberry, informational fliers containing a list of products already have been posted in areas where employees congregate, Petyak said. The DEA has launched similar campaigns in Erie County and rural areas of the state where meth labs are more common, said James Harper, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Pittsburgh office. Mike Cortez, vice president and chief legal counsel for Altoona-based Sheetz, sat in on a meeting with the DEA and other law enforcement agencies two weeks ago. He called the meeting "eye-opening" and came away amazed at the lengths people will go to operate meth labs. The problem, Cortez said, is coming up with a sensible plan that balances the needs of customers and preventing abuse. "I can tell you without hesitation that we don't have all the answers yet" Cortez said. "This is a relatively new phenomenon for us, and what we have done so far is to sit down and figure out exactly what the issue is." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom