A HISTORY OF METH

Its Popularity Burgeoned In The 1980s

Methamphetamine -- also known by such street names as crank, crystal,
speed, ice or simply meth -- actually has been around longer than many
drug agents assigned to combat it.

During World War II, German troops were issued a version of
amphetamine, a synthetic stimulant present in the current-day drug, to
stay awake during combat operations.

Amphetamines endured as a useful tool for maintaining alertness.
United States Air Force pilots use the drug, under medical
supervision, during long-distance flights.

As early as the 1960s, motorcycle gangs such as the Hell's Angels,
which originated in Fontana, traversed the country on glistening
choppers selling a version of the drug to mostly white customers.

In the four decades since, the appeal of the drug has grown
exponentially, crossing ethnic and geographic boundaries. The
skyrocketing popularity has spawned a lucrative business.
Increasingly, that trade is dominated by sophisticated Mexican drug
cartels.

The result is a multimillion-dollar illegal underground industry,
based largely in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, that every
year makes tens of thousands of pounds of the drug and sells it for
big profits.

"It's a money-maker," said Sgt. Steve Rinks, a narcotics officer with
the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. "The methamphetamine is
more in demand now than it was in the '80s."

Law-enforcement and fire officials first noticed the drug's growing
presence in the Inland area in the '60s, as local bikers made meth and
sold it nationwide.

During the 1970s, San Bernardino County's hazardous materials unit
occupied itself mostly with labs producing PCP, a narcotic that acts
as a stimulant, hallucinogen and painkiller. But by the 1980s,
law-enforcement officials noticed meth emerging as a big business.

"Probably about the early '80s we saw a shift more from PCP
manufacturing to meth," said Joe Ashbaker, supervising environmental
health specialist with San Bernardino County's Hazardous Materials
unit.

Throughout the 1980s, methamphetamine slowly emerged as the drug of
choice in the region as users and suppliers realized its advantages
over cocaine.

Meth is generally less expensive to buy, and many users find the high
preferable to that of cocaine.

"The effects are much more intense and longer-lasting," Rinks
said.

And the process for manufacturing meth, which can be made using
relatively easy-to-find household ingredients, became more efficient
in the past decade.

Chemicals like ether -- highly flammable substances that emit
noticeable odors -- have been replaced with ingredients that are more
stable and harder to detect. Other chemicals once used in the process
have been done away with in an effort to simplify manufacturing.

"The Mexican nationals have it down to a science where everything is
measured out," Rinks said. "It's more efficient. The purity is greater."

A major turning point in the local war against methamphetamine came in
1991, when local and federal authorities prosecuted San Bernardino
towing company owner Charles Wesley Arlt on drug-manufacturing and
money-laundering charges.

Arlt, now 55 years old and serving a life sentence without the
possibility of parole, was convicted of orchestrating an elaborate
scheme to provide methamphetamine ingredients to Mexican cartels.

"It was because of that case that people started to realize that meth
was a bigger problem than we thought," said Sgt. Mike Bayer, a
narcotics investigator with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

In the scheme, which generated about $1 million a year, Arlt bought
mining property in California and Nevada to conceal the real purpose
behind purchases of large quantities of phosphorous, iodine and
hydriodic acid.

The chemicals, which are integral to the manufacture of
methamphetamine, also can be used to extract gold from soil.

Arlt also used the mines to hide income generated by the
sales.

Arlt sent chemicals to partners, who set up a network of drug labs, in
Mexico and in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

In a jab at authorities, Arlt's vehicle carried vanity license plates
that read "DEAICU." The translation: "DEA: I see you." ("DEA" refers
to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.)

Arlt's case prompted a reorganization of the San Bernardino County
Sheriff's Department's narcotics effort as drug agents realized the
level of sophistication and resourcefulness required to combat
large-scale meth traffickers.

In the several years that followed Arlt's arrest, the unit more than
quadrupled in size -- from 18 officers to more than 80.

Law-enforcement officials began lobbying state and federal legislators
for laws that would make it tougher for manufacturers to get
ingredients necessary to make meth.

Regulations passed during the past four years limit the amount of
over-the-counter cold medication that can be purchased at a time and
restrict the sale of other chemical ingredients used to make meth.

By the end of 1996, the department developed the Methamphetamine
Interdiction Team to concentrate on high-level methamphetamine
operations. In mid-1999, the team combined its offices with the
Riverside County sheriff's methamphetamine team.

Today, local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies share money
and information in an effort to match the resourcefulness of their
criminal adversaries.

But while the quantity of drugs and labs seized has risen dramatically
in the past 10 years, the end of the methamphetamine epidemic appears
as elusive as ever.

"I would say methamphetamine is a very large portion of our caseload.
The prosecutors are very busy, that's all I can say. It would be nice
to have (more attorneys on the staff)," said Ken Smith, who heads
narcotics prosecutions for San Bernardino County. "I think there's
been some impact, but it doesn't seem to be bringing the number of
cases down any."