METH LINKED TO MEXICO CARTELS

Authorities Say They Haven't Overlooked Methamphetamine During Pot Operation

News stories and photos over the past two weeks depicting assault
rifle-carrying agents in camouflage swarming through the county's
public forest lands in an effort to dig out and disrupt illegal
marijuana gardens left Chris Rosemeyer scratching his head.

The 27-year-old environmental analyst says he, like many in the north
state, would rather have the agents put their efforts toward
eradicating methamphetamine and the local labs that make it.

"You can just walk around and see the tweakers around here,"
Rosemeyer said, using the street lingo for a hyped-up meth addict.
"It's just crazy."

Rosemeyer's criticism in response to the massive Operation Alesia
anti-pot garden campaign, which last week elicited a visit from the
country's top drug czar, is one that local law enforcement leaders
say they've been hearing quite a bit in recent weeks as they pull up
pot plants by the tens of thousands.

But they say drug agents are still working to stop the spread of
methamphetamine -- even as they destroy pot plants by the bushel in
the highly touted Alesia campaign.

"We're still actively working on the meth component," Shasta County
Sheriff Tom Bosenko said. "That's not been forgotten about."

Bosenko said Operation Alesia is indirectly fighting the area's meth
problem, even as it combats the environmentally destructive pot gardens.

He contends that the same Mexican drug cartels who are farming pot by
the acre in Shasta County forests also are bringing in much of the
area's methamphetamine.

Although his deputies and drug teams are still finding people with
small amounts of meth with them or in their homes when they're
arrested, the large scale "super labs" and the smaller "mom and pop"
meth cookers aren't popping up like they were in years past, Bosenko said.

Special Agent Supervisor Vic Lacey of the state's Bureau of Narcotic
Enforcement regional office in Redding agreed.

He said meth labs are getting harder to find across California, and
he, too, says narcotics officers are learning that most of the
methamphetamine is coming from Mexico.

He said the last local meth labs found in the north state were
discovered about five months ago in Trinity County. He described them
as small "stove top" operations.

Lacey credits the labs' disappearances to greater enforcement efforts
and recent restrictions on some of the chemicals used in meth production.

One such restriction, he said, is the recently enacted federal law
that requires cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine -- a key
ingredient in meth -- to be placed behind pharmacists' counters.

Those restrictions, he said, don't apply in Mexico, leaving drug
cartels free to make and export their wares.

A slimmer supply is causing the price of the drug to go up, he said.

Lacey said meth is selling for between $12,000 and $15,000 a pound,
nearly double what the wholesale prices were four years ago.

Dan Callahan, the task force commander for the Shasta Interagency
Narcotics Task Force, said meth, for years known as "the poor man's
cocaine," is now selling for more than coke.

Still, health officials say the high price hasn't kept people away
from the drug, which produces a short-term sensation similar to an
orgasm, but can cause brain damage and leave people's bodies rotting.

David Reiten, the county's drug and alcohol program coordinator, said
meth remains the illicit drug of choice in Shasta County, second only
to marijuana. And, he said, the number of meth users ordered by
judges into drug treatment has remained consistent over the years.

Similarly, Dr. Susan Comfort, the county's forensic pathologist, said
the number of people who die with meth in their systems has stayed
steady since 2000.

Toxicology tests performed after autopsy show that between 5 percent
and 10 percent of the people who ended up on the stainless-steel
examination table at the county coroner's office had meth in their
systems, according to her figures.

But Callahan is not so sure that all those people are getting their
drugs from Mexican-made meth.

Although he agreed with the assessment that drug cartels have been
bringing in large quantities of meth from across the border, Callahan
said agents are still finding dumping areas ripe with meth cooking
waste and supplies.

He said those dumps are likely coming from isolated super lab sites
"out in never-never land."

But with only a handful of agents to go after meth production, his
team doesn't have the resources he'd need to target such large operations.

"I could double my team and still stay busy," he said.