THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF METH

After The Pseudoephedrine Law Knocked The Drug Down, It Returned With A
Vengeance.

GASTON -- On a Thursday afternoon in September, police converged on an
older house near downtown Gaston with whitewashed clapboard siding.

Across the street, Kaylie Starrett watched from her own home, confused
by all the commotion. In the 18 months or so that Starrett had lived
in the neighborhood, everyone across the street seemed friendly.

It wasn't until later that she learned from friends that police
suspected her neighbors were manufacturing methamphetamine.

"I couldn't believe it," Starrett said in a recent interview on her
front porch. "Everyone says its supposed to smell really bad."

Welcome to Meth 2.0.

After drawing back a few years ago, the meth tide is gripping Indiana
again. More people are cooking meth now than at any time in the
state's history, and they are using methods that are more efficient
and much more difficult for neighbors and law enforcement to detect.

If Delaware County is any example, this second wave of meth is washing
into areas of Indiana that had previously enjoyed relative immunity to
the drug.

In 2009, police discovered zero meth labs here. Since May, however,
police have disrupted seven meth operations -- five of them in the
Gaston area.

"Yeah, I think meth is on the rise," Gaston Town Marshal Jim Oliver
said. "It's becoming more and more popular. More and more available."

A Perfect Storm

Methamphetamine, also known as speed or crank, is a highly addictive
stimulant produced in clandestine labs using common household products.

It can leave users high for hours on end, cause paranoia and result in
long-term health problems that include weight loss and horrific tooth
decay.

The drug not only devastates its users, it's a drag on the economy as
well. The RAND Drug Policy Research Center estimated the economic
burden of meth use -- including addiction-related costs, premature
death, drug treatment and incarceration -- was $23.4 billion in 2005,
the most recent year for which figures were available.

Ingredients, known in the law enforcement world as "precursors,"
include pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, lithium batteries, lantern fuel,
ether, rubbing alcohol, acids, brake cleaners and other potentially
hazardous materials.

Meth has been used illegally for decades, especially in the Southwest
and West Coast. But it didn't gain a foothold in Indiana until around
2000 and 2001, when it exploded in popularity, especially in the more
rural counties in southern and northern Indiana.

In Vigo County to the southwest, for example, police seized 166 meth
labs in 2004.

But in 2005, state lawmakers responded, passing the Indiana
Methamphetamine Protection Act, which required pseudoephedrine and
ephedrine to be placed behind the counter at retail stores and
pharmacies. The law also limited the amount of drugs customers can buy
and requires buyers of pseudoephedrine and ephedrine to sign a logbook
for their purchase and present a photo ID.

The law was a success, at least initially.

In 2005, meth labs in Vigo County, for example, were down 50
percent.

But the honeymoon only lasted so long.

By 2007, lab busts were on the rise again.

By 2009, statewide meth lab figures exceeded those prior to the
Indiana Methamphetamine Protection Act. Last year, police across the
state dismantled 1,343 meth labs, a record for Indiana.

The state is on pace for as many labs in 2010 and even more arrests,
according to 1st Sgt. Niki Crawford, commander of the Indiana State
Police Methamphetamine Suppression Section.

How could this happen?

"There's a variety of ways they (the cooks) are figuring out how to
get around the law," Crawford said.

Meth cooks have essentially outsourced the purchasing of their
pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, often to drug addicts, making it more
difficult for police to link buys to the actual drug dealers.

The practice is known as smurfing.

At the same time, they have developed a new method known as "shake and
bake" or "one-pot." Cooks have slashed production time and no longer
need anhydrous ammonia -- the odorous chemical that made meth labs
easier for police and neighbors to detect.

"Cooking meth is not as difficult as it once was," said Jeff Stanley,
a drug investigator with the Delaware County Sheriff's Office. "You
can do a one-pot in an hour-and-a-half and you can have a finished
product of methamphetamine. A few years ago the same amount would have
taken you four hours."

Further adding fuel to the meth resurgence are changes to meth
production in Mexico. Imported Mexican meth supplemented the American
meth market when laws like Indiana's Methamphetamine Protection Act
made the drug harder to come by. Then, to the surprise of many law
enforcement officials north of the border, Mexico outlawed
pseudoephedrine and ephedrine in late 2007.

Mexican cooks are still producing meth, but without pseudoephedrine or
ephedrine the drug is not nearly as strong.

American meth users, Crawford said, want meth made in
America.

"It's almost like this perfect storm has been created," Crawford
said.

Ground Zero

In the local battle against meth, ground zero has been the small town
of Gaston, population 1,000, and the surrounding rural areas.

The Gaston police department, with only three paid officers, has
uncovered five of the county's seven meth labs this year and have
arrested 13 people on meth-related charges.

The drug came across the police radar there around last winter, Town
Marshal Jim Oliver said.

But the number of busts and arrests is as much a reflection of the
police department's tenacity as it is the town's drug problem, Oliver
said.

"We've heard a lot of comments, 'My, my, Gaston must be overrun with
drugs,'" Oliver said. "No. Gaston cracked down. But it's everywhere.
Every town has it."

About 18 months ago Gaston officer Carl Barber used a combination of
his own money and donations to buy the town police department a drug
sniffing dog at no cost to taxpayers.

Having the dog, named Ammo, has allowed the GPD to make more drug
arrests from traffic stops. And the men and women they arrest give
police information that helps jump-start meth investigations, Oliver
said.

For as much attention as meth has received in the news lately, the
drug still ranks behind marijuana, pills and cocaine in terms of the
local drug of choice, authorities said.

"It's still, I would say, one of the lower drugs we are seeing,"
Stanley said. "We still have a huge prescription drug problem."

Nonetheless, meth remains a high priority among law enforcement
because of the dangers involved in making the drug.

In May, a 24-year-old Portland woman was found in her apartment
suffering from chemical burns that police said was connected to meth
manufacturing. Her 29-year-old husband, also in the apartment, had
been dead for two days from an overdose. The woman died two days later
at Ball Memorial Hospital.

The Indiana State Police have created a new website devoted to
educating the public about meth and making it easier for pharmacies to
report ephedrine and pseudoephedrine sales to authorities.

Since July, the website, www.meth.in.gov, has collected records for
about half-a-million ephedrine or pseudoephedrine sales. About 45,000
are suspicious, Crawford said.

"It's really a much broader law enforcement tool," Crawford
said.

In 2006, Oregon became the first state to make pseudoephedrine and
ephedrine available only by prescription.

Two Indiana lawmakers proposed similar bills this last year that
either died in committee or never got a hearing.

Crawford said lawmakers need to take a hard look at how much
government spends on meth. In her interview, however, she declined to
advocate for a prescription law.

"The lawmakers have to make that decision," she said. "It's not mine
to make."

In the meantime, police like Jeff Stanley said they will do their best
to curb meth with the tools they have.

"However, it's going to continue to be here," he said.