Pubdate: Thu, 30 Mar 2006
Source: Phoenix New Times (AZ)
Copyright: 2006 New Times, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/640
Author: Sarah Fenske
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

THE NEW METH

When It Comes To Preventing -- And Treating -- Crystal Meth 
Addiction, Arizona May Be Getting A Clue

It used to be that when they talked about meth, they talked about 
cold medicine. Politicians from Arizona Attorney General Terry 
Goddard to State Representative Tom O'Halleran -- a Sedona Republican 
and former cop -- were convinced that if this state could only cut 
the supply of the ingredients used to make crystal meth, the demand 
was sure to drop as well.

That thinking is changing. The Arizona Legislature is poised to pass 
a $17 million anti-meth bill, perhaps as early as this week. The 
measure includes millions for drug treatment, millions for a 
prevention campaign, and millions to help stop Mexican drug traffickers.

Not a word about cold medicine.

There are two good reasons for that.

First, the federal government has done what the state could not. 
Earlier this month, George W. Bush signed into law national 
restrictions on the cold medicines often used in home-grown meth labs.

Second, there's an increasing realization that the cold medicine 
solution doesn't really get at the heart of Arizona's problem.

The city of Phoenix's new laws on cold medicine went into effect in 
December (See New Times' series "The Perfect Drug.")

It wasn't long after that the cops noticed an intriguing pattern.

The laws were modeled after a plan that had effectively wiped out 
most of the meth labs in Oklahoma. They regulated all cold medicines 
containing pseudoephedrine -- a key ingredient for meth cooks, and 
the reason that a host of medicines, from Sudafed to Dimetapp 
Decongestant Infant Drops, work so well to treat your cold and allergies.

Under the new laws, all those medications must be kept behind the 
counter, available for purchase only after customers sign a special 
logbook. Every month, the logbook would be faxed to police.

And, as Phoenix Police Sgt. Don Sherrard explains it, even though the 
pages now make a stack eight feet high, they didn't just end up in 
the trash . . . or even in a file cabinet somewhere. The cops 
actually read them.

And that led them to Anthem.

As the officers pored over the logbook, Sherrard says, they kept 
noticing the same name, over and over, and the same Anthem address.

So they went out to investigate.

Now, it might be funny if Anthem, a cookie-cutter enclave northwest 
of the city, harbored a coven of tweakers, systematically "cooking" 
cold medicine into an illegal drug. It's not hard to imagine cops 
busting the place, sending dozens of skinny soccer moms to jail.

But that isn't what happened when the police officers made their trek up I-17.

Instead, they found a big family that had been racked by the flu.

The members of this family weren't stocking up on pseudoephedrine. 
They were buying cold medicine.

"The way the log reads, the amount purchased can be deceiving," 
Sherrard says. "All we see is that the mother's name appeared four or 
five times -- what it doesn't tell you is that she's buying 
Children's Tylenol."

(And if mom had wanted to make meth, five boxes of Children's Tylenol 
was hardly going to do the trick.)

Needless to say, Sherrard says dryly, "we closed that case."

Sherrard says he thinks the city restrictions were worth doing: "If 
we can stop just one meth lab, it's worth it."

But he's more than willing to admit that, for Phoenix, the law's 
effect has likely been minimal. Other than that mom in Anthem and, as 
it turned out, two other people purchasing large but legal 
quantities, Sherrard says the logbook has provided few leads.

That might indicate that addicts have suddenly stopped cooking meth 
here, and stopped using. But, as Sherrard is quick to point out, the 
number of meth lab busts plummeted long before December's legislation.

Years ago, most Arizona addicts made the switch from home-grown labs 
to purchasing cheaper, more potent meth from Mexican dealers.

"It's just economics," Sherrard says.

That's something the city of Phoenix's meth task force now seems to 
realize. The group convened last August with one focus: cold medicine.

When they finally met again March 8, though, members talked about 
treatment. And prevention.

Christina Dye, clinical services division chief for the Arizona 
Department of Health Services, hit home the real problem: The number 
of people seeking meth treatment from state agencies has been rising 
steadily since 2002.

Twenty-eight percent of the people seeking drug treatment in Maricopa 
County are addicted to meth.

"The largest number of people affected by this drug are in Phoenix, 
and are in Maricopa County," she said.

In the last year, the Arizona Republic's editorial board penned no 
fewer than eight editorials calling for tougher statewide 
restrictions on cold medicine.

The idea was being pushed by Attorney General Goddard, who noted 
Arizona's large number of meth addicts -- and the success of similar 
restrictions in Oklahoma. When the Legislature rebuffed Goddard last 
year, he barnstormed the state, eventually convincing 28 cities to 
pass laws of their own. And when he announced that he'd be running 
for reelection earlier this month, Goddard put a statewide 
pseudoephedrine law at the top of his agenda.

But what he never mentioned -- and what the Republic has yet to 
report -- is that, on the very day Goddard kicked off his campaign, 
Congress made such a law entirely redundant.

The reason? A little thing called the Patriot Act.

That act, the bane of civil libertarians everywhere, includes a set 
of provisions regulating pseudoephedrine.

Like Phoenix's laws, it sets the purchase limit at nine grams per 
customer, per month.

It requires medications with that ingredient to be kept behind the counter.

And, it requires that customers sign a logbook.

Oddly enough, the Arizona House of Representatives voted 43-14 to 
approve statewide pseudoephedrine restrictions, with almost identical 
components, on the very day that President George W. Bush signed the 
Patriot Act into law. (The state Senate has since assigned the bill 
to several committees.)

Fortunately, the Legislature has chosen to fast-track a different 
meth bill -- one with a much broader goal.

The bill doesn't just focus on cutting off the supply. It aims to 
reduce demand.

As of press time, the bill calls for $17 million of funding designed 
to stop meth abuse. That's $6 million for treatment services, $6 
million to help the Department of Public Safety stop the flow of meth 
from Mexico, and $5 million for a Department of Health Services 
campaign targeted at kids, modeled on the department's wildly 
successful anti-smoking initiative.

The bill, sponsored by State Representative Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, 
passed the House with a 41-8 margin earlier this month, just two 
weeks after Anderson proposed it. The Senate could approve it as 
early as this week, sending it in near-record time to Governor Janet 
Napolitano, who is said to be a supporter.

At least one senator, Anderson says, has questioned why the bill 
can't wait for the next budget.

"We explained that it was high priority, and it's being 
fast-tracked," he says. "The scope of the problem has reached the 
point where, without exception, everybody is aware of how serious it 
is -- and that we need to do something significant."