Meth, Shattered Lives, Part 2B

RAPID DRUG EVOLUTION OUTPACES POLICE

The son of meth is proving to be more evil than anything veteran state
narcotics agent John Duncan could have imagined.

To make a meth bust a decade ago, Duncan would hop on a charter plane, fly
to a remote corner of Oklahoma and take a bumpy ride throug the trees to a
cabin in the middle of nowhere. Inside, he would usually find a couple of
guys wearing lab coats and surrounded by expensive glassware.

Isolated because of the odor produced by phenylacetic acid, the labs were
usually very large with often up to a dozen 22-liter reaction flasks
operating at once. Duncan, now chief agent with the Oklahoma Narcotics
Bureau, said the labs could produce about 27 pounds of meth a week.

In 1989, Oklahoma ranked fourth in the nation in the number of meth lab
seizures, prompting legislation controlling the sale of phenylacetic acid
and stiffening prison time for manufacturing and distribution of the drug.

Authorities thought they had beaten crank.

What they couldn't foresee was that Oklahoma had three things going against
it: a rate of stimulant use 42 percent higher than the national average,
low wages and an agriculture-based economy.

Meth reinvented itself in the mid-'90s and became a cheap high,
particularly for whites who turned from crack to meth almost overnight when
easy-to-follow recipes hit the Internet.

"The one thing that has changed is that you don't have kingpins," Duncan
said. "What we're seeing now is people who were the users or the bottom
feeders are now setting up their own labs."

For less than $100 in equipment and ingredients, a meth cook can make an
ounce of dope worth about $1,200. Ten years ago, it would have cost $15,000
a month to support a six-gram-a-day habit, Duncan said.

Of the 140 people convicted of manufacturing a controlled dangerous
substance last year, at least 104 were convicted of cooking meth, an 800
percent increase from 1998.

In 1997, 10 meth labs were busted in Oklahoma City. The rate has climbed
15-fold, and now the entire state is competing with California, Arizona,
Missouri and Washington to be the meth capital of the country.

U.S. Rep. Frank D. Lucas two weeks ago asked Congress to approve another
$11.5 million to fight the meth problem, including $1 million for the
Oklahoma City Police Department.

"This isn't someone else's drug problem," Lucas said. "We must address this
epidemic before it's too late."

Four years ago, marijuana ranked as Oklahoma's most serious drug problem,
but meth has now surpassed it, said Robert L. Surovec, assistant special
agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Oklahoma City
district office.

Law enforcement has fought back by combining the efforts of the DEA and
local agencies to stop the sale of illegal precursors and limit major
trafficking.

One of the biggest success stories has been the ability of park rangers to
control the outbreak in Oklahoma's popular parks system. Arrests have been
made in 25 of the 32 meth labs found in state parks.

"We think the problem has leveled off in the parks because we got out the
word that we wouldn't tolerate this type of activity," chief ranger Larry
Hagebegger said.

The first meth lab was found three years ago at Keystone State Park, where
two labs had been set up in adjacent cabins. After spending $30,000 in
environmental cleanup costs, Hagebegger said the department trained a task
force of rangers to crack down on the problem.

"Now every employee in every park is trained in what to look for,"
Hagebegger said.

The migration of meth from the country to the city has made the job more
difficult for law enforcement agencies.

"The majority of labs are now in urban areas," Duncan said. "The smell
isn't as bad, and the cooks have the anonymity of the city."

And with many more retailers to choose from, shopping often is a breeze for
a methamphetamine cook with many of the items available at the corner
convenience store.

The essential ingredient in the two most common meth recipes in Oklahoma is
ephedrine, which can be extracted from cold tablets, decongestants,
mini-thins and maxi-alerts. It takes several hundred tablets to produce
approximately two ounces of methamphetamine.

"We're limited in what we can do to control the sale of cold tablets, but
we're getting more help as we go along," said Mark Woodward, spokesman for
the Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics.

While individuals can legally possess up to 24 grams of ephedrine, several
major retailers have voluntarily limited the number of tablets sold to each
customer. Still, police suspect that large quantities of pseudoephedrine
are being sold in "back room" deals.

Most of the other ingredients used in the cooking process also are
available over the counter.

One method requires red phosphorus and iodine, which can be purchased at
any feed store. Oklahoma has banned the sale of red phosphorus without a
permit, but meth cooks have resorted to stripping the striking plate off
matchboxes.

Other key ingredients - red devil dye, and a solvent, such as Acetone - are
available at most stores, Woodward said.

Ether, another solvent, can be legally purchased, but because it's
dangerous to transport in bulk, Woodward said meth cooks extract ether from
starter fluid.

One cooking method, labeled the "Nazi" method, relies on lithium strips,
which are extracted from batteries, and anhydrous ammonia, the most
commoner fertilizer used by Oklahoma farmers.

The cooking process starts with what authorities sarcastically refer to as
"some quality family time."

"That consists of the parents and kids popping pseudoephedrine pills out of
blister packs and tossing them into a blender," Duncan said.

The pills have been either purchased legally in small amounts at
pharmacies, gas stations and grocery stores or obtained illegally from
retailers willing to sell in bulk quantities from the backroom of their
store. For every recipe, there's 50 things that can be substituted for the
tightly regulated ingredients, which has made it difficult for authorities
to track meth cooks through their purchase of precursors.

"It's like tinker toys," Duncan said. "If we outlaw those items, the cooks
will figure out another way to make the same thing out of different
molecules. There are probably thousands of undiscovered ways to manufacture
methamphetamine."

(SIDEBAR)

How the Legislature Has Tried to Halt the Spread of Meth

1996 Senate Bill 1123 Under this act, all substances containing ephedrine,
with 14 product exemptions, are now Schedule IV controlled substances.

1998 House Bill 2521 Added Red Phosphorous to the precursor chemical list.

1998 House Bill Created a new crime of possessing three or more listed,
non-precursor chemicals with an intent to use them to manufacture a
controlled dangerous substance.

1999 House Bill 1723 and Senate Bill 660 Established a Lab Tracker law to
track labs seized by law enforcement agencies throughout the state.

2000 Senate Bill 878 Created a felony for stealing and/or illegally
transporting anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.

2000 Appropriations Bills OBN received appropriations to hire full-time
computer analysts to track meth production and compile related information.

2001 House Bill Denied bond during appeals for drug manufacturing convictions.

2001 Senate Bill 397 For a second or subsequent conviction of transporting
or distributing meth within 2,000 feet of a school or park, a prison must
serve 85 percent of his/her sentence before becoming eligible for parole
consideration.

The bill also provides a two-tiered scale for punishing manufacturers,
based on the amount of drugs involved.

Simple manufacturing will be punished with a prison term of seven years to
life plus a $50,000 fine.

Aggravated manufacturing, which is defined by thresholds that are similar
to federal law, is punishable by 20 years to life and a fine of at least
$50,000.

2001 Senate Bill 753 Requires lawbreakers to pay a special $5 assessment to
help finance a new forensic laboratory at the Oklahoma State Bureau of
Investigation, which has had a large backlog because of the increase in
clandestine meth labs.

The bill also incorporates provisions from House Bill 1411. For example,
knowingly allowing a child to be present at a location where meth is
manufactured will constitute the felony crime of child endangerment.

Source: Oklahoma Narcotics Bureau and Oklahoma Legislature.