METH PRICES SHOOT UP

BREMERTON -- The details of the "buy-bust" were typical: cops provided
cash to a confidential police informant, who in turn purchased a
fourth of an ounce of methamphetamine at a downtown parking lot.

But busts like these are getting expensive, Bremerton Police Special
Operations Sgt. Randy Plumb and his cadre of undercover detectives
will tell you.

It took $470 to buy that quarter of an ounce Thursday afternoon, one
that netted two suspects and sent them to the Kitsap County jail.

"These prices have drastically increased," Plumb said, recalling one
informant's request for $800 for a half an ounce: "I thought either
the informant's ripping us off or the dealer's ripping us off."

The average price of a whole ounce in Washington in 2006 was $725.67,
according to the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or
HIDTA, a federal agency that provides intelligence and helps
coordinate local law enforcement drug units.

Over the past year, prices of methamphetamine -- in all of Washington
and in many western states -- are likely up nearly a third, according
to Bernie Hobson, spokesman for the Seattle office of the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration.

Law enforcement officials, both locally and federally, point to
crackdown efforts in the United States and neighboring Mexico that
have slowed the pipeline of methamphetamine supply, and namely, its
key ingredient, pseudoephedrine.

Thus, the price increase is viewed as a small victory in the fight
against the meth epidemic.

"It's a long time coming," said Dave Rodriguez, director of the
Northwest HIDTA, which includes the Kitsap County-based West Sound
Narcotics Enforcement Team and Bremerton's Special Operations Group.

Economically, a higher price likely means that drug users, who snort
or inject the drug, must search farther for fewer dealers and pay more
for the same high. But Rodriguez says the drug's scarcity actually
leads more to seek help, not more criminal activity.

"This will get people into treatment," he said.

Law enforcement agents believe a smattering of factors has contributed
to the fall in meth supply, including:

Changes in law.

Thanks to laws that took effect in 2005 and 2006, Washington's sellers
of pseudoephedrine products, such as decongestant medicines, must
store them behind counters and in locked cabinets. Buyers, limited in
the amount of boxes they can buy, are also listed in a "pseudo-log"
that requires only the swipe of a driver's license. Law enforcement
now tracks who's making the purchases, which has eradicated local "mom
and pop" methamphetamine labs.

Higher quality.

With the exit of many local producers of the psychostimulant, law
enforcement has concentrated on the trafficking of the drug from
Mexico and states with more lax regulations on purchases of
pseudoephedrine, according to HIDTA.

Where there's less of a police presence and more naivety about the
drug, bigger labs -- sometimes called "superlabs" -- have prospered. The
labs have the ability to refine the production process and make a more
pure product.

With distance comes cost.

But the farther the meth travels, the more a black-market type of
shipping fee is incurred.

As the meth is bought and sold, and cut from kilogram to pound to
ounce to gram, the price increases with each sale.

"And at each middleman, the price goes up," said John Halsted, a
detective on the local West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team.

Crackdown on imports.

Efforts by the U.S. government to put pressure on Mexican superlabs is
having some effect, according to Rodriguez.

For one, the Mexican government trained about 1,000 officers in meth
and meth lab recognition.

But Mexico also limited its imports of pseudoephedrine to only four
ports in the country, and it is regulating the product manufacturers
are shipping to them, Rodriguez said.

Eventually, manufacturers of meth may find a way to get more of the
drug into the United States and Washington state, which could show
itself through a price drop. Rodriguez speculates that Central
America, South America and even Canada could be targets for meth
manufacturing with a decreased presence in Mexico.

"They're always going to look for the weakness," he said.