GOOD OR BAD METH?

COVINGTON - A small tech firm in Covington has developed a way to
tell whether people who take drug tests have been using the "bad"
methamphetamine - the illegal street drug - or its chemical
half-sister, "good" meth, which is a common ingredient in
over-the-counter cold relief products.

ASAP Analytical in November bought the rights to build computerized
systems that separate materials into their basic molecular structures
and then use infrared light to analyze the unique "fingerprint" of
every chemical in a material.

Had the test been developed years earlier, it might have helped
British skier Alain Baxter show beyond doubt after the 2002 Salt Lake
City Winter Olympics that he had used the Vicks inhaler. Baxter,
known as "the Highlander," was stripped of his bronze medal in slalom skiing.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport several months later cleared
Baxter of suspicion he had intended to cheat by using the Vicks
inhaler. But his Olympic medal was not reinstated.

Baxter participated in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics and still competes.

Today, law-enforcement agencies can use ASAP's combination of gas
chromatography and infrared spectroscopy to determine what form of
methamphetamine someone on parole or probation has used.

"It actually shows up different in two parts of the (infrared)
spectrum, so now you can differentiate between 'd' (dextro-) and 'l'
(levo-) forms of methamphetamine," said Lewis Smith, a forensic
scientist with the New Jersey State Police South Regional Laboratory.
"And that is really good."

Smith and other law-enforcement scientists said the test could be
useful in cases of driving under the influence of drugs, or in cases
where people on probation test positive for having methamphetamines
in their bodies.

"What is nice about this is it gives us the ability to actually
differentiate between 'd' and 'l,' and it would be interesting to try
this derivative on other (illegal) compounds," Smith said.

"Here's a tool out here that can help fight crime, it can help in the
biodiesel or fuel markets to develop new gasolines or things of that
nature," said ASAP President Don Harris. "It can also help us develop
new drugs. It's very big in the field of (developing) flavors."

His company bought the product line from Varian Inc. of Palo Alto,
Calif. Four companies, including Hewlett-Packard, owned the
underlying technologies before, but never maximized its potential, Harris said.

ASAP's former technical support manager, Charles "Chuck" Johnson,
developed the method for differentiating between "good" and "bad" meth.

Chemists often use mass spectrometers to differentiate between
substances, Harris said, "but there's a lot of things that weigh the
same, and this is a way to differentiate things that weigh the same."

"If this became an issue, the methamphetamine, there's no way you
could tell the difference with a mass spectrometer," Smith said.
"It's impossible. They give you identical patterns."

Procter & Gamble emphasized the form of methamphetamine it uses
cannot be converted into the illegal form. Law-enforcement scientists agreed.

"The isomer that is in our product is the one that cannot be made
into meth," said Suzette Middleton, a P&G spokeswoman.

"It's always good to be able to have some test to be able to
distinguish one from the other," Middleton said. "The good news here
is, like I said, the form that we have in our products just can't be
turned into meth."

Smith agreed: "If someone were taking Vicks inhalers and breaking
them open and cutting it on the street, I don't think they'd have too
many customers much longer because ... it wouldn't have the same effect."

International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said
via e-mail the removal of Baxter's medal would not be reconsidered.

"Both forms of methamphetamine were on the list of prohibited
substances in force in 2002," Moreau said. "There is therefore no
ground to review the decision made at that time."

Baxter did not return requests for an interview. Andrew Mitchell, who
works for Baxter, speculated the skier may simply want to put the
situation behind him.