OLD-STYLE METH: CARTEL COOKBOOK FRUSTRATES

Stopping the manufacture of illegal chemical drugs is like "squeezing
mud," says one author on the subject. This comes amid reports that
seizures of drugs show the Mexican cartels are back to making
methamphetamine in the style of bathtub chemists some 40 years ago.

Take one drug-making ingredient off the shelf and there's a recipe for
another way to produce the same thing.

In other words, you can burn a marijuana field, but you can't take
everything off the store shelves.

"Chemical restrictions are like squeezing mud, the stuff just comes out
between your fingers," said Steve Preisler, author of "Secrets of
Methamphetamine."

This is disheartening news; but then so is it disheartening that the U.S.
"War on Drugs," instituted in 1969 ... well, so many of the bad guys just
keep oozing through law-enforcement's fingers.

According to an Associated Press story out of Mexico City, drug cartels
took a 34 percent hit on meth between 2006 and 2007. That's when Mexico
began restricting sale of pseudoephedrine.

Now the cartels are back to what Preisler calls "old school," the way of
motorcycle gangs and home producers. It's called P2P. "I used to cook by
that route circa 1980," he said.

So cut the availability of pseudoephedrine? Well, there's more than one
way to cook a drug-enforcement agency's goose. Head toward an accessible
market and pick up some phenylacetic acid derivatives -- sodium
phenylacetate and 2-phenylacetamide .

It's frustrating news that you can still be a drug dealer working out of
your bathtub.