FEWER LABS BUT METH STILL PLENTIFUL IN STATE

A Hazelden drug trend report found a 78 percent drop in meth lab
busts after the new law took effect. But it noted that meth produced
out of state is still easy to find here.

Methamphetamine labs are disappearing quickly in Minnesota, but that
doesn't mean there are fewer abusers or there's less of the dangerous
stimulant on the street, officials say.

A Hazelden drug trend report released Thursday reported a 78 percent
drop in the number of meth labs busted and a 75 percent drop in
people arrested for making meth in the third quarter of 2005 compared
to that period in 2004. The drop came after a state law went into
effect July 1 restricting the sale of decongestants -- which contain
a key meth ingredient -- at drugstores.

"We have seen a huge drop of meth labs in the state. I think the new
law is the best example of something that actually worked," said
special agent Larry Bergsgaard, in charge of the narcotics unit of
the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He said similar results
were seen in Iowa, Oklahoma and other states that have passed similar laws.

hat drop, the latest data available, confirms anecdotal reports from
law enforcement officials that they are finding fewer meth labs. The
explosive chemicals used to make the drug seep into the walls and
floors of buildings and into the environment and can cause cancer,
brain damage and respiratory problems.

Although the report didn't cite the number of meth labs busted, in
2003 police found more than 400 of them, according to the state
Department of Public Safety. However, "meth continues to come into
the state in large quantities, the purity is higher and the price is
still pretty cheap," Bergsgaard added. Meth tested at a Minneapolis
crime lab has increased in purity from 13.6 percent in 2001 to 73
percent last year, according to the Hazelden Foundation's semiannual
report on Twin Cities drug trends.

Bergsgaard also noted that regional drug task forces have seen a
tremendous amount of cocaine at very low prices arriving, mostly from
Mexico, in the past year.

Cocaine, Opiates Kill More

Cocaine continued to be the No. 1 drug causing people to make
emergency hospital visits, with 3,442 such visits last year, noted
Carol Falkowski, a Hazelden Foundation drug trend expert who compiled
the report. And cocaine-overdose deaths increased from 49 to 62
deaths in Hennepin and Ramsey counties in the past two years.

Although the number of people treated for meth addiction continues to
increase, fewer died from meth overdoses. There were 14
methamphetamine deaths in the state last year compared with 20 in
2004, the report said. Heroin and other opiates caused the most drug
overdose deaths in the two counties, 102 deaths in 2005, which was 30
more than in 2004.

Among all Minnesotans, fewer than 1 percent used methamphetamine in
the past year, Falkowski said. She noted that national surveys found
the same share, about 0.6 percent, had used meth.

That compared with about 7 percent of Minnesotans who had tried
marijuana, the most-mentioned drug, and 1 percent who used cocaine in
the past year, according to a telephone survey of about 16,900 people
interviewed for the state Human Services Department.

Among people visiting Twin Cities emergency rooms last year, meth was
the third most often abused drug with 1,402 cases (after cocaine,
3,552 cases, and marijuana, 3,102), said the report.

It said the typical person treated for meth addiction was a white
man, age 18 to 25. The average age at which users started smoking
meth is 21. Cocaine users were typically black men over 34 who
started smoking the drug at age 25.

The most common drug abused by women in treatment is meth.