Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Rome News-Tribune (GA)
Copyright: 2015 Rome News-Tribune
Contact:  http://www.romenews-tribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1716

LOCAL METH LABS ON DECLINE AS MEXICAN DRUGS FLOOD AREA

It's good news and bad news for Rome and Floyd County in the battle 
to curb methamphetamine labs here. First, the good news: the efforts 
of law enforcement to find and destroy home-grown meth-cooking 
operations of significant size in this area have been very 
successful. That, combined with stricter regulation and monitoring of 
ingredients used by labs, has caused a decline in local meth production.

Now users have gravitated to the "one pot cook method," says Barry 
McElroy, assistant commander of the Rome-Floyd Metro Task Force. This 
involves making a small quantity of meth in a soft drink bottle and 
then tossing the bottle away. In the past two years, McElroy's unit 
has been called to the sites of no more than two labs and they were 
not full-sized, active operations.

The home-grown labs are very dangerous, setting up a scenario for 
damaging, life-threatening explosions. Says McElroy: "People can drop 
dead just from breathing in the gases produced when it's cooked." On 
top of that, a meth lab can contaminate an entire house and the 
ground outside if it is used for dumping chemicals. So toxic is the 
meth-cooking process that the best solution for a contaminated house 
is to demolish it.

The bad news is that Mexico is more than taking up the slack in local 
meth output. As McElroy reports: "The Mexican cartels are flooding 
this area with cheap meth, and people are buying that." Mexico has 
numerous large labs and easy access to ingredients. As a result, 
"Mexican meth seems to have killed the need for labs around here," 
the Task Force officer explains.

The same thing is happening across the country. Mexican drug cartels 
are suspected of producing up to 90 percent of the meth available in 
this country and shipping it across the border - together with other 
drugs including cocaine and marijuana, according to the former chief 
of global enforcement for the Drug Enforcement Administration, Dave 
Gaddis. The U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego, California, reported 
that seizures of methamphetamine jumped 43 percent in fiscal 2014, 
accounting for about 48 percent of all the meth seized by the Patrol 
nationwide.

Nationwide, there is a dwindling supply of homegrown meth because of 
more effective law enforcement. Yet even when such labs were cooking 
at a much higher level around the country, officers would find only 
10 ounces to 16 ounces of meth at a time. Contrast that with Mexico, 
where the cartel manufactures 500 kilos at a time.

It probably means more bad news. Former DEA officer Gaddis says if 
prices go down as a result of the market being flooded, "because of 
the nature and violence of that particular drug, we're going to see 
emergency room visitations increase" as will drug overdoses and homicides.

And that means our law enforcement officers will be facing new 
challenges in coping with more widespread trafficking in one of the 
worst drugs ever made. This is a time for vigilance not only by law 
enforcement officers but by the public, which must play an active 
role in informing authorities about any activities involving the sale 
or use of illegal drugs.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom