5122 Dead, 255 since 1/20/09
2009-08-25 03:03:30 UTC
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/08/shake-and-bake-meth-formula-skirts-anti-
drug-laws/
New formula lets meth users make drug in soda bottles, avoid anti-drug
laws
[This explains a phenomenon I've been hearing about here in the No. Cal.
boonies: "Bicycle Meth". Stuff is made on bicycles. Few fumes, and
nearly impossible for LE to spot. I had been wondering how that was
possible]
JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS
AP News
Aug 24, 2009 20:26 EST
This is the new formula for methamphetamine: a two-liter soda bottle, a
few handfuls of cold pills and some noxious chemicals. Shake the bottle
and the volatile reaction produces one of the world's most addictive
drugs.
Only a few years ago, making meth required an elaborate lab — with filthy
containers simmering over open flames, cans of flammable liquids and
hundreds of pills. The process gave off foul odors, sometimes sparked
explosions and was so hard to conceal that dealers often "cooked" their
drugs in rural areas.
But now drug users are making their own meth in small batches using a
faster, cheaper and much simpler method with ingredients that can be
carried in a knapsack and mixed on the run. The "shake-and-bake" approach
has become popular because it requires a relatively small number of pills
of the decongestant pseudoephedrine — an amount easily obtained under
even the toughest anti-meth laws that have been adopted across the nation
to restrict large purchases of some cold medication.
"Somebody somewhere said 'Wait this requires a lot less pseudoephedrine,
and I can fly under the radar,'" said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
An Associated Press review of lab seizures and interviews with state and
federal law enforcement agents found that the new method is rapidly
spreading across the nation's midsection and is contributing to a spike
in the number of meth cases after years of declining arrests.
The new formula does away with the clutter of typical meth labs, and it
can turn the back seat of a car or a bathroom stall into a makeshift drug
factory. Some addicts have even made the drug while driving.
The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and
then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.
Using the new formula, batches of meth are much smaller but just as
dangerous as the old system, which sometimes produces powerful
explosions, touches off intense fires and releases drug ingredients that
must be handled as toxic waste.
"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make
a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri State Highway
Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with
rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can have a
very devastating reaction."
One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can
result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states
have linked dozens of flash fires this year — some of them fatal — to
meth manufacturing.
"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it
just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can
pop," Woodward said.
When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back
room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you
see more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires
and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or
driving down the road."
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that
users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now
contains a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe
toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the
worst meth problems.
The do-it-yourself method creates just enough meth for a few hits,
allowing users to make their own doses instead of buying mass-produced
drugs from a dealer.
"It simplified the process so much that everybody's making their own
dope," said Kevin Williams, sheriff of Marion County, Ala., about 80
miles west of Birmingham. "It can be your next-door neighbor doing it. It
can be one of your family members living downstairs in the basement."
A typical meth lab would normally take days to generate a full-size batch
of meth, which would require a heat source and dozens, maybe hundreds, of
boxes of cold pills.
But because the new method uses far less pseudoephedrine, small-time
users are able to make the drug in spite of a federal law that bars
customers from buying more than 9 grams — roughly 300 pills — a month.
The federal government and dozens of states adopted restrictions on
pseudoephedrine in 2005, and the number of lab busts fell dramatically.
The total number of clandestine meth lab incidents reported to the Drug
Enforcement Administration fell from almost 17,400 in 2003 to just 7,347
in 2006.
But the number of busts has begun to climb again, and some authorities
blame the shake-and-bake method for renewing meth activity.
The AP review of 14 states found:
_ At least 10 states reported increases in meth lab seizures or meth-
related arrests from 2007 to 2008.
_ The Mississippi State Crime Lab participated in 457 meth incidents
through May 31, up from 122 for the same period a year ago — a nearly 275
percent increase.
_ Several states, such as Oklahoma and Tennessee, are on pace this year
to double the number of labs busted in 2008. The director of Tennessee's
meth task force said the pace of lab busts in his state is projected to
be about 1,300 for 2009, compared with 815 for all of 2008.
Some states lack a central database to monitor cold medicine sales, so
meth cooks circumvent state laws by pill shopping in multiple cities and
states — a practice known as "smurfing" that allows them to stay under
restrictions placed on sales.
Traci Fruit, a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation,
said law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly frustrated
because there's no way to tell who is buying what "unless we go from
store to store ourselves and pull up the records."
Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas have been
hotbeds for meth use because an important ingredient in the traditional
method, anhydrous ammonia, was easily available from tanks on farms where
it's used as a fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous
ammonia and instead uses ammonium nitrate, a compound easily found in
instant cold packs that can be purchased at any drug store.
Data from the Justice Department and the DEA data suggest the method
could only be in its early stages, and "shake-and-bake" labs have
recently been discovered as far north as Indiana and as far east as West
Virginia.
States surveyed by the AP also included: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
While many law enforcement agencies are just learning how to spot the new
labs, other states are rushing to close loopholes in laws limiting the
sale of meth ingredients.
Mississippi Sen. Sid Albritton, said that state's law — modeled after
Oklahoma's — forces buyers to show identification and makes stores keep a
log of cold medicine sales. But the problem in Mississippi is lack of
technology to instantly log purchases in a central database.
"You have to understand going in that drugs are an evolutionary process,"
said Albritton, a former police detective and narcotics officer. "The day
after we pass a law, they are going to look for ways to circumvent that."
___
Associated Press writers Roxana Hegeman in Wichita, Kan.; Holbrook Mohr
in Jackson, Miss.; Tom Parsons in Little Rock, Ark.; Bill Poovey in
Chattanooga, Tenn.; Jim Salter in St. Louis; and John Zenor in
Montgomery, Ala., contributed to this report.
drug-laws/
New formula lets meth users make drug in soda bottles, avoid anti-drug
laws
[This explains a phenomenon I've been hearing about here in the No. Cal.
boonies: "Bicycle Meth". Stuff is made on bicycles. Few fumes, and
nearly impossible for LE to spot. I had been wondering how that was
possible]
JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS
AP News
Aug 24, 2009 20:26 EST
This is the new formula for methamphetamine: a two-liter soda bottle, a
few handfuls of cold pills and some noxious chemicals. Shake the bottle
and the volatile reaction produces one of the world's most addictive
drugs.
Only a few years ago, making meth required an elaborate lab — with filthy
containers simmering over open flames, cans of flammable liquids and
hundreds of pills. The process gave off foul odors, sometimes sparked
explosions and was so hard to conceal that dealers often "cooked" their
drugs in rural areas.
But now drug users are making their own meth in small batches using a
faster, cheaper and much simpler method with ingredients that can be
carried in a knapsack and mixed on the run. The "shake-and-bake" approach
has become popular because it requires a relatively small number of pills
of the decongestant pseudoephedrine — an amount easily obtained under
even the toughest anti-meth laws that have been adopted across the nation
to restrict large purchases of some cold medication.
"Somebody somewhere said 'Wait this requires a lot less pseudoephedrine,
and I can fly under the radar,'" said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the
Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
An Associated Press review of lab seizures and interviews with state and
federal law enforcement agents found that the new method is rapidly
spreading across the nation's midsection and is contributing to a spike
in the number of meth cases after years of declining arrests.
The new formula does away with the clutter of typical meth labs, and it
can turn the back seat of a car or a bathroom stall into a makeshift drug
factory. Some addicts have even made the drug while driving.
The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and
then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.
Using the new formula, batches of meth are much smaller but just as
dangerous as the old system, which sometimes produces powerful
explosions, touches off intense fires and releases drug ingredients that
must be handled as toxic waste.
"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make
a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri State Highway
Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with
rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can have a
very devastating reaction."
One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can
result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states
have linked dozens of flash fires this year — some of them fatal — to
meth manufacturing.
"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it
just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can
pop," Woodward said.
When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back
room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you
see more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires
and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or
driving down the road."
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that
users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now
contains a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe
toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the
worst meth problems.
The do-it-yourself method creates just enough meth for a few hits,
allowing users to make their own doses instead of buying mass-produced
drugs from a dealer.
"It simplified the process so much that everybody's making their own
dope," said Kevin Williams, sheriff of Marion County, Ala., about 80
miles west of Birmingham. "It can be your next-door neighbor doing it. It
can be one of your family members living downstairs in the basement."
A typical meth lab would normally take days to generate a full-size batch
of meth, which would require a heat source and dozens, maybe hundreds, of
boxes of cold pills.
But because the new method uses far less pseudoephedrine, small-time
users are able to make the drug in spite of a federal law that bars
customers from buying more than 9 grams — roughly 300 pills — a month.
The federal government and dozens of states adopted restrictions on
pseudoephedrine in 2005, and the number of lab busts fell dramatically.
The total number of clandestine meth lab incidents reported to the Drug
Enforcement Administration fell from almost 17,400 in 2003 to just 7,347
in 2006.
But the number of busts has begun to climb again, and some authorities
blame the shake-and-bake method for renewing meth activity.
The AP review of 14 states found:
_ At least 10 states reported increases in meth lab seizures or meth-
related arrests from 2007 to 2008.
_ The Mississippi State Crime Lab participated in 457 meth incidents
through May 31, up from 122 for the same period a year ago — a nearly 275
percent increase.
_ Several states, such as Oklahoma and Tennessee, are on pace this year
to double the number of labs busted in 2008. The director of Tennessee's
meth task force said the pace of lab busts in his state is projected to
be about 1,300 for 2009, compared with 815 for all of 2008.
Some states lack a central database to monitor cold medicine sales, so
meth cooks circumvent state laws by pill shopping in multiple cities and
states — a practice known as "smurfing" that allows them to stay under
restrictions placed on sales.
Traci Fruit, a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation,
said law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly frustrated
because there's no way to tell who is buying what "unless we go from
store to store ourselves and pull up the records."
Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas have been
hotbeds for meth use because an important ingredient in the traditional
method, anhydrous ammonia, was easily available from tanks on farms where
it's used as a fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous
ammonia and instead uses ammonium nitrate, a compound easily found in
instant cold packs that can be purchased at any drug store.
Data from the Justice Department and the DEA data suggest the method
could only be in its early stages, and "shake-and-bake" labs have
recently been discovered as far north as Indiana and as far east as West
Virginia.
States surveyed by the AP also included: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama,
Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
While many law enforcement agencies are just learning how to spot the new
labs, other states are rushing to close loopholes in laws limiting the
sale of meth ingredients.
Mississippi Sen. Sid Albritton, said that state's law — modeled after
Oklahoma's — forces buyers to show identification and makes stores keep a
log of cold medicine sales. But the problem in Mississippi is lack of
technology to instantly log purchases in a central database.
"You have to understand going in that drugs are an evolutionary process,"
said Albritton, a former police detective and narcotics officer. "The day
after we pass a law, they are going to look for ways to circumvent that."
___
Associated Press writers Roxana Hegeman in Wichita, Kan.; Holbrook Mohr
in Jackson, Miss.; Tom Parsons in Little Rock, Ark.; Bill Poovey in
Chattanooga, Tenn.; Jim Salter in St. Louis; and John Zenor in
Montgomery, Ala., contributed to this report.
--
"Universal" American healthcare coverage, explained:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor
to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread." (Anatole France from The Red Lily, 1894)
"Universal" American healthcare coverage, explained:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor
to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal
bread." (Anatole France from The Red Lily, 1894)