Pubdate: Sun, 26 Mar 2006
Source: Blade, The (Toledo, OH)
Copyright: 2006 The Blade
Contact:  http://www.toledoblade.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/48
Author:  Vanessa Williams
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MANUFACTURE, USE OF METHAMPHETAMINES STILL ON THE CLIMB

But Drug Activity Not As Much As Feared

These packages of meth are a portion of 44 pounds seized in Defiance 
County that had a total street value of $2 million. (picture)

A year ago, northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan authorities were 
bracing for a flood of illegal methamphetamine.

The drug had swept east from California, and Indiana ranked fourth in 
the nation in meth lab seizures. That the tide would inundate the 
area seemed inevitable.

Today, local police and sheriffs' departments and drug enforcement 
agencies report that while meth manufacturing and use have increased 
somewhat, their rise has not been as dramatic as had been feared. 
Ohio and Michigan are ranked at the bottom of the top 20 states for 
meth lab seizures.

The Van Wert Police Department has seen "a little more activity" in 
the past year, Sgt. Jeffrey Blackmore said. Similar reports come from 
Williams County and the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Office in 
Michigan, which was a hotbed of meth activity last year.

Throughout northwest Ohio, "I would say it's increasing, but not at 
the epidemic levels we have seen in Iowa, Kansas, or especially 
Missouri," said Robert Kasprzak, project manager at the Community 
Partnership, a Toledo-based substance abuse intervention and 
prevention coalition.

Why not?

While authorities can't pinpoint a particular reason, they cite a 
combination of factors that seem to have slowed the tide in Ohio:

Some local laws, laws in other states, and an impending Ohio law 
aimed at tracking the movement of the drug.

Keeping ingredients used to make meth, such as pseudoephedrine and 
anhydrous ammonia, behind pharmacies' counters or locked doors.

An increase in the use of education and treatment programs.

Learning from other states to the west that have had the drug and its 
problems for years.

Still, meth makes regular headlines locally, with three busts 
reported this month - two in Williams County and one in Paulding County.

A rural drug

Developed in the early part of the last century for use in bronchial 
inhalers and as a decongestant, the synthetic drug known as meth and 
poor man's cocaine is still available as a prescription for certain 
limited uses. Illegal use began in Hawaii, hopped to California, and 
spread east.

Seizures have been rare in New England and mid-Atlantic states but 
are rising in the South, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Its use and manufacture have settled in rural areas, where the 
distinctive stench of cooking meth dissipates in the open air. Few 
neighbors mean few witnesses; users and makers tend to be white men, 
although usage is popular among white women too, authorities said.

"It's not really an urban drug, although there are pockets of users 
in Toledo," Mr. Kasprzak said. "But it's pretty small [in Toledo]."

Jim Schultz, associate director of Substance Abuse Service Inc. in 
Toledo, said his agency has not seen any Toledoans being treated for 
meth use in the last couple years.

Officials with the Defiance-based Multi-Area Narcotics Unit, a law 
enforcement task force that covers Defiance, Fulton, Henry, Putnam, 
and Williams counties, said those counties have seen the lion's share 
of meth-related activity in northwest Ohio, prompting them to work together.

In 2004, the narcotics unit worked 34 cases involving meth. Last 
year, the number rose to 37. Officers arrested 35 people on meth 
charges in 2004; in 2005, the number dropped to 25. They uncovered 
six dump sites in 2004 and five last year. Legal countermeasures

In the last year, several states, including Indiana, Michigan, and 
Kentucky, joined the ranks of 37 states that have passed laws 
requiring businesses that sell pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient for 
making meth, to track purchases and/or move the drugs behind the 
counter, according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. 
The laws are too new, drug enforcement officials said, so there's no 
information yet on how well they're working.

But Summit County, which has led Ohio in meth seizures and arrests, 
saw a 30 percent drop in the number of labs seized in the six months 
after a similar local law that put pseudoephedrine behind the counter 
took effect last spring, said Capt. Hylton Baker, president of the 
Ohio Task Force Commanders Association and commander of the Summit 
County Drug Unit, a multijurisdictional task force.

A statewide Ohio law takes effect May 17, requiring stores to place 
behind the counter all medicines containing pseudoephedrine as its 
sole active ingredient; limiting sales of those medicines to 
customers 18 and older; and restricting purchases to no more than 9 
grams within a 30-day period. It also requires merchants to keep 
logbooks of sales.

Police can't wait, noting that meth makers from Indiana and Michigan 
often cross the state line into northwest Ohio to buy the drug.

"It'll keep those people from running across the line because they 
can't get it here either," Captain Baker said. "Hopefully, that'll 
curtail a lot of the lab sites."

On the federal level, President Bush signed into law the Combat 
Methamphetamine Epidemic Act earlier this month, which was tacked on 
to the Patriot Act, according to the National Association of Counties 
in Washington. The federal meth law imposes nationwide minimum 
requirements on the sale of pseudoephedrine, but it does not pre-empt 
restriction laws that many states have passed. These laws have been 
credited with dramatically cutting the number of small toxic labs, 
according to the association.

Dangerous undertaking

Farmers have become more savvy as well, with many cooperatives 
placing the anhydrous ammonia farmers use as fertilizer under lock 
and key and even surveillance. Anhydrous ammonia is a key ingredient 
in many meth recipes.

And that's one of the issues with lab sites: the poisons released by 
the process of making, or cooking, methamphetamine. Improperly 
handled, anhydrous ammonia can burn and even kill.

"Some cookers have died from exposure to anhydrous ammonia," Mr. 
Kasprzak said. "It sucks in all the moisture from the air, and if 
your hands or face are next to it, it can be deadly."

Some meth-fueled disasters result from the flammable materials often 
used to cook the drug.

"We've had nine fires in Summit County that we can attribute to guys 
blowing their labs up," Captain Baker said. "One guy ran back inside 
to cover up the lab. He had to be restrained. ... In Logan County in 
November, a van outside a Wal-Mart exploded while [a man] was inside 
trying to re-up some of his chemicals." Treatment, education

All of these factors mean meth makers' children are particularly at risk.

"We're starting to see an increase in requests for treatment of 
meth," Mr. Kasprzak said. "Some people are being threatened [with 
having] their children taken away, so they'll try treatment."

Social services are starting to step in with education programs for 
youngsters and social and health workers, the people most likely to 
enter a home where meth is being made.

The Community Partnership is training health department workers in 
Fulton County next month; it also has developed a new program for 
children - one of 14 in the United States, Mr. Kasprzak said.

"We built a curriculum to teach kids the dangers of poisons and 
toxins and to give them some refusal skills," Mr. Kasprzak said.

Education programs for adults also are on the rise. Law enforcement 
agencies have had training options for a few years; other emergency 
workers have increased options as well.

On April 6, the University of Findlay's school of environmental and 
emergency management will offer a training Webcast on dealing with 
clandestine methamphetamine labs. Police, emergency medical 
technicians, hazardous materials workers, and social services workers 
will conduct the simulation of dealing with a meth cooking lab.

Despite the progress in raising awareness, no one thinks the problem 
is going to fade away.

"The criminal is becoming a little more clever," said Undersheriff 
Jeremiah J. Hodshire of Hillsdale County in Michigan. "It doesn't 
mean, because the numbers are down, they're not out there. It means 
they're becoming increasingly difficult to find."

And the tight economy doesn't help. Last year, the Hillsdale 
Sheriff's Office formed a special unit devoted solely to meth 
enforcement. The unit has since disbanded because funding no longer exists.

"The goal was the meth team would go out and investigate," 
Undersheriff Hodshire said. "We still have the meth team, and when 
there are substantial tips, then we do put the men on overtime for 
the team. But as far as our concept of having them in the field, that 
is no longer [possible] due to budgetary constraints."

And that's the case in plenty of counties, Captain Baker said. The 
counties in Ohio that have had most of the meth busts don't 
necessarily have most of the meth labs.

They simply have more people for enforcement, he said. Lack of law 
enforcement coverage means meth makers can operate far more easily.

"I'm sure they're out there in other parts of the state," Captain 
Baker said. "They just haven't found them."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom