Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jun 2003
Source: Elizabethton Star (TN)
Copyright: 2003 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.starhq.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1478

METH FAST BECOMING NO. 1 THREAT

It's not unusual to pick up the newspaper and read about a drug bust or 
hear about one on the TV evening news. The drug law enforcement officers 
are looking for is methamphetine. Not only are they looking for the drug, 
but they are looking for active narcotics manufacturing labs, many of which 
are set up and operating illegally in private residences. There's no doubt 
the drug scourge in East Tennessee for the current decade is going to be 
methamphetamine, the poor man's cocaine. Earlier this month, three Carter 
County residents were arrested and charged with the manufacture of 
methamphetamine at a home on Dry Creek Road. They had all the necessary 
chemicals to conduct a methamphetamine cook. The following day, there was a 
report of a Carter County man arrested in Johnson City for possession of 
methamphetamine. These are only two incidents lifted from newspaper 
accounts in recent weeks of meth busts. State and federal authorities have 
labeled meth as the No. 1 drug threat in rural America, but it is spreading 
from the countryside to urban areas. Its use continues to grow. The rise in 
methamphetamine popularity has led to an increase in illicit drug labs, 
which pose health and environmental hazards to investigators and the public.

The very nature of the ignitable, corrosive, reactive and toxic chemicals 
at the lab sites have resulted in explosions, fires, toxic fumes and 
irreparable damage of human health. The drug has such a deadly hold on its 
users that they try to make it using a combination of over-the-counter 
drugs and household cleaning products. You can actually make the stuff with 
something as small as a hot plate. Methamphetamine's popularity no doubt is 
due to the ease with which it is possible to make the drug, but that is a 
deceptive notion that can have a lethal effect. The drug can be produced 
from readily bought items.

Usually snorted or injected, it can make the user feel euphoric, energized 
and powerful. Addicts might be able to go days without sleep but pay a 
price with aggressiveness and paranoia. Although the labs are small, the 
chemicals used in the drug's manufacture are a risk to everyone in the 
area. Face it, most of the people who are doing it are not chemists. Just 
as the drug can be produced almost anywhere, methamphetamine users can come 
from any sector of society.

It may not be the drug of choice, but it's cheaper and easier to use, say 
law enforcement officials. Tennessee's lawmakers refused to pass statutes 
restricting the sale of some over-the-counter medicines used to make 
methamphetamine, even though the state's retailers said they had agreed to 
a statewide limit. The proposed law was weak - misdemeanor penalties for 
selling in one transaction more than three packages of one or more of the 
medicines or more than three grams - and apparently would not prevent a 
potential user from going from store to store to buy what was needed. 
Methamphetamine now is part of the drug war. The battleground is our 
backyards and neighborhoods, and the effects of the drug on children should 
steel our courage for the fight.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens