METH USE: SPECIFICS CHURN THE STOMACH

Occasionally some things stick in my craw, and it is hard to feel much
sympathy for certain accused defendants, even when they are legally
exonerated. A couple of cases, one from the California Supreme Court and one
resurrected by a federal court last month, reminded me of my craw
obstruction.

Gerardo Perez was arrested down in the Southland while carrying a shopping
bag of red phosphorous and another of powdered iodine. Now, those are not
exactly items you can pick off the supermarket shelf. In fact, though the
chemicals have a devout following of users, they are heavily controlled, the
main reason being that they are ingredients - or what are called precursor
chemicals - used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Perez argued in his appeal that he was just planning to sell the chemicals
to someone else and that merely having the chemicals wasn't a crime, even
though he knew they would be used to manufacture meth. The California
Supreme Court agreed and reversed his conviction.

The federal case involved a couple who shuttled between California and
Hawaii. Rick and Brenda Vo tried to mail a package from Hawaii to
California. When the shipping company opened the box to check for aerosol
cans, it found a bag of white powder, later determined to be 15 pounds of
methamphetamine. Testimony during the trial indicated that packages had gone
both directions across the Pacific and that the Vos were serious players in
the drug trade.

The Vos were convicted - Brenda of conspiring to distribute the drug and her
husband of aiding and abetting distribution. Rick Vo appealed, arguing that
his conviction should be overturned because of technicalities in the trial.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and upheld the conviction.

What initially caused my heartburn was a case I read several months ago
involving a California methamphetamine-addicted couple with a baby boy
nicknamed Joey. See if this quote from the case of People v. Culuko doesn't
stick in your craw also: "Somebody killed 7-month-old Joey Galindo Jr. by
hitting him in the stomach. The blow was so hard that it ruptured an artery
at the back of his abdomen, and he died of internal bleeding. At various
earlier times, somebody had broken his leg and four of his ribs, smashed him
in the face, and shaken his head so violently that the resulting bleeding in
his brain might have killed him if the bleeding from the ruptured artery had
not killed him first."

We have all heard of the scourge of meth. Abstracts are easy. Specifics
churn the stomach. When I checked the legal database for just California and
the 9th Circuit, I came up with nearly 1,400 decisions involving meth users.
Even a cursory search of the facts brings heartbreaking stories of
high-speed car crashes, spousal and child abuse, violent crimes to support
the habit, senseless murders induced by drug psychosis, premature births and
drug-addicted babies.

Several of the appeals in that database involve parents who lost rights to
raise their children because meth was ultimately stronger than love. Experts
now believe that 80 percent to 90 percent of the 20,000 San Joaquin Valley
children in foster care today are there because of methamphetamine.

If you do a little research on meth, you'll see how insidious the drug is to
society. It was created in Japan in 1919 but was little used until World War
II, when both Axis and Allied troops used doses to maintain their stamina in
battle. Adolf Hitler was apparently a very heavy user, as was the Nazi SS,
renowned for its vicious cruelty.

After the war, the long-term effects of meth became clear and governments
began to crack down, but by then the manufacturing process was public
knowledge and those who wanted to find it, could. When the original
ingredients became hard to get, chemists developed alternate recipes that
made meth even stronger.

The drug is highly addictive. It initially makes the user feel happy,
energetic, strong and smarter than most everyone else. Ultimately it leads
to heart and brain damage, psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, anxiety,
suicide, out-of-control rages and malnutrition. The meth rush literally
burns out the body and mind like a Fourth of July sparkler.

This is why these cases stick in my craw. When Perez and the Vos are
obviously involved in the meth trade, we still have to put up with arguments
about technicalities and completed-crime-versus-intended-crime arguments.
Perez knew he was a middleman for making meth. The Vos' 15 pounds of meth
equal about 7,000 street doses. I understand the legal arguments, but seeing
the damage caused by meth to little Joey and other innocents, I have a hard
time swallowing.

Pamela Case, a local freelance paralegal, is among a select group of local
residents rotating their columns in Saturday's Tracy Press.