METH LABS DECREASE IN COUNTY, STATEWIDE

Home-grown methamphetamine labs have all but disappeared from Lane
County since the tightening last year of Oregon's laws restricting
access to pseudoephedrine, a primary ingredient in meth production
found in cold and allergy medications.

So far this year, police have uncovered two meth labs within county
lines, both believed to be dump sites or remnants of inactive labs.

Compared with a high of 84 labs in 1998, it's a dramatic drop that
has been reflected statewide.

According to Department of Human Services statistics, law enforcement
uncovered 587 labs in Oregon in 2001.

So far this year, there have been 21.

"Those numbers obviously have dropped precipitously," said Brett
Sherry, an environmental health specialist with the DHS drug lab
cleanup program. "A huge reason for that is the laws put into effect
to control precursors."

Since July 2006, Oregon has required a doctor's prescription for
medications that contain pseudoephedrine. The state's Board of
Pharmacy two years earlier had moved such medications behind
pharmacy counters to limit access and prevent bulk sales to meth
cooks, a move reinforced in 2005 by the passage of the federal Combat
Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, which applied the restrictions nationwide.

Although labs are drying up, meth addiction remains a serious problem
in Oregon.

The number of Oregonians checking into treatment programs has
remained steady, as has the number of drug arrests in the state.

The same is true in Lane County, according to Eugene police Sgt.
Jerry Webber, who heads the city's vice-narcotics unit, whose
detectives double as the county meth lab cleanup team.

"There's just as much meth here as there ever was, they're just not
making it," Webber said.

As the domestic supply has dwindled, so-called "superlabs" located
primarily in Mexico aE" always a big meth source even before the
national crackdown aE" have stepped in to fill the void.

"Most of the dope we're seeing is being imported from outside the
state," said Lt. Mike Dingeman, commander of the Oregon State Police
drug enforcement section. "We believe most of it that is coming into
the U.S. is from Mexico."

But recent international efforts have helped dam the flow of meth
from the south, said Rob Bovett, legal counsel for the Oregon
Narcotics Enforcement Association.

"We've been having some success getting Mexico, India and Germany to
be very cooperative," said Bovett, who has worked with Rep. Darlene
Hooley, D-Ore., to draft state and federal meth regulations.

Nine factories in three countries aE" India, Germany and China aE"
manufacture most of the world's pseudoephedrine, Bovett said. And
Mexico is one of the leaders in meth production and exportation. In
2004, Mexico imported 230 metric tons of pseudoephedrine, an
"obscene amount" for a country with a legitimate need for only about
70 metric tons, Bovett said.

Due to new restrictions, the country imported only 76 metric tons of
pseudoephedrine last year, he said.

The sudden drop is due to unprecedented controls that Mexico has
begun exercising on the supply of pseudoephedrine under President
Felipe Calderon. Beginning in January, Mexico will prohibit the
importation of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, and all use of the
precursor chemicals will be banned throughout the country by January
2009.

As a result, the cost of meth has skyrocketed in the United
States.

Earlier this month, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration
reported a 73 percent increase in the cost of a pure gram of meth
between January and September of this year, to $245 from $141.

Dealers are cutting pure meth with other substances to make it go
farther.

"About a year ago the purity of the meth on the street in America
went down for the first time in the past 10 years," Bovett said.
"We're starting to see addicts on our streets think they're getting
ripped off because the meth isn't as strong as it was before, and
they're right. The purity is going down across the nation."

Some users are turning to other drugs to get high. Experts have
observed a slight resurgence in cocaine use in Central Oregon and in
heroin use in the eastern part of the state.

But today's less-addictive meth is driving some people to seek
treatment, Bovett said. The next step is to expand Oregon's treatment
capacity, he said.

"This is a golden opportunity to really do what we need to be doing
in terms of prevention, enforcement and treatment," he said. "Public
safety demands that these folks have access to treatment."

The restrictions appear to be having a mysterious side effect aE" a
significant drop in property crime in Oregon and the nation.

Law enforcement has attributed about 85 percent of Oregon property
crime to meth-addled criminals looking for quick cash to buy their
next fix.

Experts expected the problem to get worse as meth grew scarcer and
more expensive, but recent FBI numbers have shown the opposite.

Nationwide, property crime decreased 2.9 percent in 2006 compared to
2005. Oregon saw a 16 percent drop in property crime between 2005 and
2006. Among cities with populations over 100,000, Eugene experienced
the biggest decrease of 18.6 percent between 2005 and 2006, but
Portland and Salem also had double-digit drops during the same period.

"That's one of the things everybody's trying to figure out," said
Mike Stafford, public safety planning coordinator for the Oregon
Criminal Justice Commission.

It's possible that so-called "smurfing" operations aE" where six or
seven people buy the ingredients for a single cook to turn into meth
to be shared among the group aE" were also operating as criminal
cells, and the laws that broke up meth rings also broke up theft
rings, Bovett said.

But Bovett and others warned it is too early to draw any conclusions
from the numbers, which could be caused by changes in crime
reporting, an increase in the number of citations vs. arrests,
decreases in police staffing levels or the cyclical nature of crime
trends.

The Criminal Justice Commission has assembled a work group of
sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors and a state Department of
Justice analyst to examine the possible causes and meaning of the
decrease. Its findings will be forwarded to the Legislature and
governor, Stafford said.

The drop in lab activity has had other positive side effects, experts
said. Fewer unwitting families are moving into homes contaminated by
previous tenants' meth labs. The highly toxic chemicals involved in
meth cooking are being kept out of the environment. And fewer
children are living in unhealthy, dangerous conditions.

Oregon's apparent victory over domestic meth labs has made it a model
for other states and countries combatting their own meth problems,
Bovett said. England recently began requiring prescriptions for
pseudoephedrine-based medicines, though police there seized a total
of five labs last year.

"I think there are a lot of folks around the world that are learning
some of the hard lessons we've learned in Oregon, but by no means are
we done," he said. "The meth lab problem is solved but not the meth
problem."