Pubdate: Mon, 23 Jan 2006
Source: Bradenton Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2006 Bradenton Herald
Contact:  http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/58
Author: Kate Kernike
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LAWS CURBING METH PRODUCTION, NOT USE

Solution Led To New Problem: Mexican Meth

DES MOINES, Iowa - In the seven months since Iowa passed its law 
restricting cold medicines used to make methamphetamine, busts of 
homemade meth labs have dropped from 120 a month to just 20. People 
once terrified about the neighbor's house blowing up now walk up to 
the state's drug policy director, Marvin Van Haaften, at his local 
Wal-Mart to thank him for making them safer.

But Van Haaften, like officials in other states that have passed 
similar restrictions, is now worried about a new problem: The drop in 
home-cooked meth has been met by a new flood of crystal 
methamphetamine coming largely from Mexico. Sometimes called ice, 
crystal methamphetamine is far purer, and therefore even more highly 
addictive, than powdered home-cooked meth, a shift that treatment 
providers say has led to greater risk of overdose. And because 
crystal methamphetamine costs more, police say thefts are increasing.

The University of Iowa Burn Center, which in 2004 spent $2.8 million 
treating people whose skin had been scorched off by the toxic 
chemicals used to make meth at home, says it now sees hardly any such 
cases. Treatment centers, on the other hand, say they are treating 
just as many or more meth addicts. And although child welfare 
officials say they are removing fewer children from homes where 
parents are cooking the drug, the number of children being removed 
from homes where parents are using it has more than made up the difference.

As Congress prepares to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine, the 
cold medicine ingredient that is used to make methamphetamine, 
officials here and in other states that have imposed similar 
restrictions recently caution that the laws fall far short of a 
solution to the epidemic of meth abuse.

Federal drug agents tend to describe ice as methamphetamine that is 
at least 90 percent pure - far more potent than homemade powdered 
meth; a "good cook" yields a drug that is about 42 percent pure, but 
around 25 percent is more common.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman