IS METH RARE HERE OR JUST HIDDEN?

GENESEE COUNTY - A few years ago, police sounded warnings that a scary
drug was making inroads into Genesee County.

A drug that would turn users into crazed maniacs. A drug that could be
brewed up in the comfort of home, using common store-bought goods.

Its name? Methamphetamine.

"It's here, and it's only going to get bigger," a state police
official told The Flint Journal in 2000.

But, so far, meth remains a bit player on the local drug scene and
hasn't been near the phenomenon that was predicted.

A county health official estimates that just over 1 percent of people
interviewed seeking treatment cite meth as their drug of choice.

And the Flint Area Narcotics Group had seized less than a gram of the
drug this year before finding a small amount during two busts in October.

"We haven't seen any on the street," said FANG Officer Don Urban, the
team's meth expert.

Police also are finding fewer meth labs in Genesee
County.

FANG went nearly a year without a meth lab bust before finding two
small "mom and pop" operations in Clio and Flint Township in October.

The local numbers mirror a statewide trend that has seen meth lab
takedowns drop from 261 two years ago to less than 100 this year.

Why the dramatic drop in lab busts? Outsourcing, police
say.

Two years ago, the state began restricting the sale of cold medicines
used to cook meth.

The result is that meth is now cheaper to smuggle in from Mexico and
Canada, said state police Lt. Tony Saucedo, commander of the statewide
meth investigation unit in Lansing.

Despite the drop in labs, Saucedo doesn't believe meth has gone away -
it's just harder to find.

Unlike cocaine and marijuana, which demand the lion's share of police
attention, Saucedo said meth likely still goes unrecognized by some
street officers because they don't encounter it as much.

"Methamphetamine is a different animal," he said.

And it's not an animal that police relish encountering.

Not only is the cooking process for meth highly toxic and potentially
explosive, the drug has a longer-lasting high than cocaine and can
keep users awake for days.

Heavy users, or "tweakers," have a reputation for strange and violent
behavior.

In one highly publicized 1995 incident, a meth user in San Diego stole
an M60 Patton tank and led police on a slow-speed chase crushing
everything in his path before he was shot to death by police.

One possible reason for the lack of a local explosion in meth's
popularity could be the state's proactive efforts to curb interest in
the drug before it grabs a foothold, said Genesee County Prosecutor
David Leyton.

The money spent on Michigan's anti-meth campaigns may have
"significantly wounded" attempts to grow the market here, said Leyton.

Leyton added that critics of those efforts might argue that money
would have been better spent on campaigns against more established
drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

"I can see both sides of that issue," said Leyton.

While the evidence room at FANG suggests the Genesee County drug trade
isn't all that interested in meth, police have found evidence in
recent years to suggest otherwise.

In 2001, FANG busted one of the largest meth operations in the state
and dismantled labs in Flint, Burton and Richfield Township.

Investigators believe that bust crippled the fledgling meth industry
here, but said tips continue to come into FANG about labs sprouting up
around the area.

Fast-moving "cooks," however, either dismantle labs before they are
caught or move the process around to different sites.

Urban is pleasantly surprised the meth business is not booming, but
doesn't believe the lull will last forever. "It's not like we don't
have a meth problem ... it's that we're not finding it," he said.