Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

SOME ADDICTS COOK THEIR OWN RATHER THAN BUY

Michelle Smith was tired of chasing the bag.

"Sometimes you spend hours or days looking for (methamphetamine) and
you go to someone who has to go to someone," said Smith, 37. "Then
you play the wait game and you've already given them money and you
don't know what they're really doing with it."

So instead of chasing the bag, Smith and a relative decided they
would make their own meth. Their isolated homes in rural Silver
Springs were the perfect places to cook meth undetected.

"We did a lot of research on the Internet and bought books," she
said. "We asked friends and with all the information, together we
figured it out."

Drug Enforcement Administration agents say they are spending less
time looking for small-time meth labs in Northern Nevada,
concentrating instead on efforts to curtail the demand. As a result,
the number of small meth labs discovered has dropped from 259 in 2001
to just 50 in 2004.

When drug stores began putting cold medications that included
chemicals used to make meth behind counters, a practice strengthened
in March by the Combat Meth Act that was signed into law by President
Bush, it became harder for addicts to get some of their main
ingredients: pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine. The
Combat Meth Act limits a person to buying a maximum of 9 grams a
month, mandates the products are behind the counter and requires
purchasers to show identification and sign a logbook.

As a result of the restrictions, more meth is being imported into the
state and produced primarily in "superlabs" (producing 10 pounds or
more in a 24-hour period) in Mexico and California.

"The laws these days you can't go and get pills at every place we
used to," Smith said. "We used to get (a lot) and then we could only
get like two or three boxes."

"Shopping took forever," she said. "After a while, it was easier just
to buy it downtown (Reno)."

Smith and her cooking partner mapped out a circuit of drug and feed
stores in Lyon County, Carson City and Reno where they would buy the
cold medicine and household products needed to cook meth. It took
them a whole day to do the shopping.

Smith became an expert at mixing the right amount of Sudafed pills,
bleach and iodine crystals and collecting red phosphorus off matchbox
strikers. She also became good at extinguishing meth-cooking fires in
her kitchen and car.

"My addiction came so quickly, you're just locked in," Smith said.
"You don't even look past the minute you're in. As long as you have
dope to do, that's your life."

Before her addiction, Smith survived breast cancer after being
diagnosed at 22. In high school in California, she got good grades
and was offered scholarships.

Now she is living in a transitional women's home in Reno, trying to
regain her life, health, employment and relationship with her
daughter. With the help and support of her family and group meetings,
she has stopped using meth.

"It takes away your emotions and feelings ... the love for my
daughter, I just wasn't into expressing," she said. "I didn't care
what she thought.... Day to day, it was a numb existence. I couldn't
see how emaciated I was and how horrible I looked.

"I couldn't see the mess meth created."