CRANK TURNING UP AT CITY BARS

Tolerating sales pitches from drug dealers is just one of the
byproducts of spending too much time in bars.

Typical of any unplanned shopping trip, these guys never seem to sell
what you need: Tylenol PM would be nice, or maybe a strong, 12-hour
antacid in tablet form. Instead, at least once a week, some
furtive-looking soul shoulders up and mutters a coded sales pitch for
a cheap high.

Most recently, the usual pitches "Yo, got that good herb" (for pot)
and "white lady in the house" (cocaine) have been replaced by offers
to "go tweakin'."

To most Pittsburghers, going tweakin' sounds like taking a ride in a
car that needs its brakes fixed. In reality, tweak, or crank, is one
of the country's most notorious street drugs. Known formally as
crystal methamphetamine, the dull, yellow powder is said to pack the
kick of 40 cups of coffee, along with a wicked, nervous buzz.

Cheap enough that a $20 bag can keep a tweaker high for a whole
night, crank has been followed by crime and violence more faithfully
than a drug-sniffing police dog, in cities including Phoenix and San
Diego.

Because Pittsburgh is a city notoriously late to pick up on new
fashion trends, it only figures that crank has taken years to reach
our streets. But even if it gets here five years after its peak
elsewhere, that's too soon for city narcotics Sgt. John Fisher.

While working as a narcotics detective on hundreds of arrests, Fisher
watched crack cocaine destroy neighborhoods from Garfield to
Arlington. Crystal meth, he said, has been known to string out its
users just as badly, and for even less money.

Fortunately, Fisher said a few isolated offers from freelance dope
salesmen do not an epidemic make: "We've seen very few instances of
crystal methamphetamine in our area, and thank God for that," he said.

Though largely considered a drug of the American Southwest, crank has
made a showing recently in Philadelphia and other Eastern cities,
Fisher said. Manufactured in homemade labs and garages from ordinary
chemicals found in pharmacies and hardware stores, crystal
methamphetamine is not only dangerous for its effect on users.

Combining the drug's base chemicals in makeshift labs often creates
explosive gases, Fisher said.

"It's so toxic, if we found a meth lab, we'd have to call in the
hazardous materials crews to inspect the place," he said.

Of course, its lethal toxicity is part of what makes crank so attractive.

A similar fatal attraction exists with local drug customers who favor
what Fisher calls "traditional narcotics" like heroin, prescription
pills and marijuana.

When a potent new Mexican heroin started showing up on our streets
last year in a form that was strong enough to cause overdoses, Fisher
said heroin users were frantic to get their hands on a batch of the
potentially-lethal dope.

"They knew the stuff that could kill you was good," he said dryly.

In Fisher's estimation, there's no need to assume that crank has
taken up permanent residence in our city, though police have been
holding their breath to see if it arrives.

The drugs being offered around town might well be bogus imitations of
the real thing. Or they could be leftovers from a crankhead who
brought back more meth than he bargained for from his summer vacation.

If not, let's just hope that if crank calls, nobody will be home.