Excerpted from ENN EMERGENCY SERVICES REPORT-Sunday, April 13, 1997 Vol. 1 - 103
METHAMPHETAMINE INVADES MIDDLE AMERICA ...
By Steve Macko, ENN Editor
Some communities in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota have noticed a surge in crime. They are also encountering individuals with inexplicable behavior. Many times, and out of nowhere, a flash fire erupts and an explosion destroys a mobile home trailer. There's more ... in a single night, a desperate young thief steals a car, a pickup truck and a motorcycle.
All of these events are defined as unusual in states that are considered mostly rural. But law enforcement authorities know exactly with what they are dealing with -- methamphetamine.
Methamphetamine is a potent, popular, destructive and many times deadly synthetic drug that has long been associated with the West Coast of the United States. "Meth" has now invaded middle America.
Users of the drug can become walking zombies. They often have paranoid fantasies that are fueled by days without sleep and/or food, only craving for more of the drug. "Meth" ruins lives, fills jails, floods courts and frustrates police officers.
Scott County, Missouri, Sheriff Bill Ferrell said, "Years ago, I predicted it would be the biggest problem we had ... but I still didn't realize what it would turn out to be. It snowballs, but it's underground and you don't know what you've got until it's too late."
Methamphetamine is known by many different names. It's called meth, crank, ice or crystal. The drug is now flooding into the Middle West of the U.S. It is said to be surpassing crack and other drugs in popularity in many communities. It has reached the backwoods barns in southeast Missouri to Indian reservations in North and South Dakota to meatpacking plants in Iowa and Nebraska.
Ken Carter, the director of the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, said, "We're in the middle of a meth epidemic. This state has a tremendous appetite for that stuff ... It's from high school all the way up to the age people should know better."
In Iowa, meth arrests accounted for 47 percent of drug activity in 1995, compared to less than five percent in 1991. In February, police in Nebraska recently seized the largest shipment of the drug in that state -- 34 pounds, worth $1.5 million on the street.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office that covers the region of five Midwest states and southern Illinois says that meth arrests have gone through the roof in the five-year period ending in 1996. Five years before, DEA made 47 meth-related arrests. In 1996, they made 424. And those statistics do not take into account arrests made by local and state authorities which are said to number in the hundreds.
In 1996, the DEA seized 303 meth labs in the Midwest, almost one per day, compared to just six seizures in 1992. Of those 303 seizures, the vast majority -- 250 -- were made in the state of Missouri.
U.S. Attorney Stephen Hill in Kansas City says his office has been overwhelmed by meth cases. He said, "We, in effect, have become the source country in the Midwest for meth."
Methamphetamine was long considered a problem in the West and Southwest parts of the U.S. Especially in the state of California where almost 800 meth labs were seized in 1996. The drug has spread to other parts of the country now because it's so easy to make and there is a considerable profit margin to be made.
Sheriff Ferrell said, "You don't have to go to Mexico. You don't have to transport it from Colombia. This is something you make with stuff you can buy from local hardware store."
Meth can be smoked, snorted, swallowed on injected. It usually contains ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which can be found in over-the-counter cold medications. Other ingredients are used that are considered to be quite dangerous, such as lye, rat killer, even battery parts. It is a very volatile mix of chemicals. There are constant reports of meth "cooks" who burn themselves severely or have even been killed from explosions or toxic fumes.
Emergency responders who come across a methamphetamine lab should call for an emergency hazardous materials response from local fire authorities.
Today's meth labs can be compared with the illegal moonshine stills of day's past. The drug can be made with a skillet and stove, just like an omlet. it can be made in a bathtub or even the trunk of a car and the recipe can be found on the internet.
Why is it so popular? There are several reasons. For the maker and seller -- a $1,000 investment can make a $20,000 profit. For the buyer -- it's the cheap man's high. A $100 buy of cocaine can give a user a 20-minute high. The same amount of meth can keep a user high for a day or two. In other words, more bang for the buck.
At one time, the meth drug trafficking trade was the sole domain of motorcycle gangs. Not anymore. Everybody and his uncle is the meth business. Des Moines, Iowa, Police Sergeant Russ Underwood said, "The meth trade is probably different from any other drug trade. Instead of going to some dark corner of the city, you might be able to get some from your co-worker or the person next door in the suburbs. You don't have to put your life in peril to go into the inner city ... where someone might shoot you."
Most of the meth in Missouri is made in the state. In Iowa, it's a different story. Meth is imported there ... and from mostly an unlikely source -- illegal immigrants. Since June of 1995, a federal task force has seized 60 pounds of the drug and has arrested 45 illegal immigrants, according to Jerry Heinauer, who is the Omaha director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. He said, "Illegals are coming up and selling this stuff, melting within the community where there are meatpacking plants."
Kansas City U.S. Attorney Hill said that in 1994, 80 percent of the narcotics cases in his office involved crack or powder cocaine. Now, 90 percent of the cases are methamphetamine-related. He believes that between 400-500 meth labs will be seized in Missouri in 1997.
(C) EmergencyNet News Service, 1997. All rights reserved. Redistribution without permission is prohibited.