Pubdate: Sun, 15 Apr 2007
Source: Morning News, The (Springdale, AR)
Copyright: 2007 The Stephens Media Group
Contact:  http://www.nwaonline.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/835
Author: Melissa Sherman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH LABS SAID TO BE DECLINING DUE TO STRICTER LAWS

ROGERS -- Federal laws have made it harder to purchase the key 
ingredients needed to manufacture methamphehtamine, but local police 
officers are seeing a higher volume of the drug brought into Benton County.

The methamphetamine Precursor Control Act of 2005 forced cold and 
allergy medicines containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine off store 
shelves and behind pharmacy counters and limited how much a person 
could purchase.

Since the start of the new law, Captain Mike Sydoriak said the Benton 
County Sheriff's Office has seen a dramatic drop-off in the number of 
meth labs.

Methamphetamine can take the form of powder, a pill or crystal and is 
smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed, according to the Drug 
Enforcement Administration Web site. Sydoriak said he heard a month 
ago methamphetamine was being manufactured in candy form, like a 
lollipop, and with flavors, like strawberry.

A Rogers Police Department officer, who wished to remain anonymous, 
has served five years with the narcotics division and said it's 
getting harder to detect meth labs, but undercover officers are now 
seeing larger amounts of methamphetamine, in the form of crystal or 
ice, brought into Northwest Arkansas.

The Rogers department has seen an 11 percent increase from 2005 to 
2006 in the overall possession of drugs and a 20 percent decrease in 
the sale or manufacture of drugs from 2005 to 2006.

Five years ago undercover officers were buying just grams of 
methamphetamine from dealers, then it was ounces, and now it's up to 
pounds, the Rogers officer said.

U.S. meth labs have declined from 17,500 in 2004 to 8,000 in 2005, 
and now two-thirds to 80 percent of methamphetamine is imported, 
according to an Associated Press report.

The top five exporters of pseudoephedrine to the United States in 
2005 were the United Kingdom, Mexico, South Africa, Switzerland and 
Belgium, according to the U.S. Department of State Web site.

Rogers officers have tracked some of the ice they've seized to 
Mexico, via Texas and California, the anonymous officer said.

It would take weeks to calculate how much methamphetamine has been 
seized by the Rogers Police Department, said Lt. Mike Johnson, public 
information officer. That's because before 1999, the collection of 
evidence was notated in books, Johnson said. Since then, it's been 
computerized.

Detective Travis Newell of the sheriff's office said users just need 
a source of heat, acetone and cold pills to manufacture methamphetamine.

The average users encountered by the sheriff's office are 
middle-aged, and police see a lot of burglaries and thefts related to 
methamphetamine use, Newell said.

Joseph T. Ricketson, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of 
Investigation, said in a recent Associated Press report that users 
sometimes stay awake for days, producing psychotic behavior, 
including extreme self-mutilation.

Ricketson told of encountering a man who had cut open his abdomen 
with a butcher knife "and began to pull his intestines out" after 
using the drug for four or five days.

Web Watch

DEA's drug education

www.justthinktwice.com/

www.usdoj.gov/dea/concern/meth.html .
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman