PURER METH BRINGS ORGANIZED CRIMINALS

Smuggling Is Up As Laws Close Labs

Police and prosecutors fear they are seeing the leading edge of a new
methamphetamine scourge in Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

They say a purer form of the illegal stimulant -- called "ice" -- is being
imported from the Southwest and Mexico, replacing a less powerful form of
the drug that users create in makeshift labs.

With the arrival of this potent crystallized meth comes a new, organized
wave of crime that deals in shipments costing tens of thousands of dollars,
officials said. "Ice is to meth what crack is to cocaine," said Tony King,
resident agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's
field office in Louisville. "It's not just Kentucky, it's nationwide."

Ice is being hauled into the Midwest by the same network that transports
cocaine, he said.

One reason that imported meth is appearing is that meth makers are having
more difficulty getting the ingredients to brew their own, authorities said.

Voluntary sales restrictions coupled with tougher laws in Illinois and
Missouri have put such crucial meth ingredients as Sudafed behind counters
and anhydrous ammonia under lock and key. And some retailers are reporting
to police any suspicious purchases of large amounts of cold and allergy
drugs and other items used to make meth.

Police say another inducement is that street dealers can cut the drug
before it's sold, boosting profits.

Also, some people want the purer form of meth, authorities said.

According to a DEA bulletin, "As they had done in Tennessee, Mexican
organizations first infiltrate the market by offering high-quality
methamphetamine at low prices, amassing a large customer base that comes to
prefer the superior product they offer over locally produced 'hillbilly meth.'

"Once the customer base is firmly established, they raise prices. This
process is currently under way in rural Kentucky."

Darrin Thomas, adult services director at Four Rivers Behavioral Health
outpatient services in Paducah, estimated that 10 percent of the 100 to 150
meth addicts treated there have migrated to ice.

One distinction seems to be the degree that people using ice will go to
procure it, he said.

"How do they pay for it? Stealing and prostitution -- anything," he said.

Treatment is the same for people hooked on locally cooked and imported
meth, he said.

Among the dangers is that ice can be 80 percent to 90 percent pure, but
local cookers can achieve purity of only 15 percent to 30 percent, King
said. That can lead to overdoses, although local officials said they were
not aware of any tied to ice. Ice's arrival

Ice began showing up sporadically about six months ago and now is being
seen regularly, King said.

Much of the ice is made in what the DEA calls "super labs" in Mexico, which
can produce batches of from 10 to 200 pounds, King said.

King said also said it involves a more sophisticated criminal enterprise to
purchase, protect and market the drug.

The drug is brought into the area by shipped packages and couriers.

Jeremy Mull, who prosecutes drug cases for Clark County in Jeffersonville,
Ind., said ice is beginning to show up there "more and more."

McCracken County Sheriff's Department Capt. Jon Hayden said meth cooks are
realizing it's easier to buy and resell it than it is to cook it.

"It's a lot easier to get caught cooking it," he said. "These are smarter
drug dealers. They are ones that don't use their product." Recent ice arrests

After raids on Feb. 26, John Lee Clark of Kevil was charged with
manufacturing and trafficking in methamphetamine in McCracken and Ballard
counties, authorities said.

An informant's affidavit filed in Ballard Circuit Court accuses Clark of
purchasing five pounds of ice in Arizona in February and bringing it to
Kentucky.

In McCracken County, deputies arrested six people on suspicion of dealing
ice. They said they found large amounts of cash, several ounces of ice,
explosives and guns in three raids.

In Calloway County last weekend, detectives in two counties chased a
suspected ice courier at speeds of 100 mph before he eluded them.

Victor Cook, Calloway County assistant commonwealth's attorney, said the
fugitive is wanted on warrants in Kentucky and New Mexico and is considered
armed and dangerous.

"What is alarming is how cheaply people say they can buy it in quantities,"
said Cook. "They say they can buy four to six pounds for $18,000 and sell
it on the street for $44,200 a pound."

Jim Wright, a detective with the Calloway County Sheriff's Department, said
the ice dealers are unlike people who make it for their own use.

"These people are a heck of a lot more organized than the rookie meth
cooker who gets his recipe off the Internet," Wright said. "They are not
afraid of the police, and they are not afraid to kill." New law, new problem

Starting July 1, a Kentucky law will limit the amount of cold and allergy
tablets containing pseudoephedrine, a vital ingredient to make meth, to
three packages at a time and no more than nine grams a month. Purchases
require a photo identification and sales are logged.

"I hopefully expect to see a decline with the new laws." But "we have a
(meth) demand now, and we expect to see an influx of imported
methamphetamine to fill it," said Maj. Mike Sapp, commander of drug
enforcement for Kentucky State Police.

State police found three pounds of imported meth during a recent raid in
Paducah, Sapp said.

Combating imported meth means a shift in tactics to more traditional
enforcement that focuses on supply lines and distribution, Sapp said.

Eight years ago, Ballard County Sheriff Todd Cooper confronted the first
wave of Missouri meth cookers who crossed the Mississippi River at
Wickliffe looking for unguarded anhydrous ammonia, weaker drug laws and
dealers drawn from the region's high unemployment rolls.

Now Cooper believes he is seeing the footprint of ice.

"It is going to take the place of locally manufactured meth, and I am
worried," Cooper said.