Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jun 2006
Source: Reno Gazette-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Reno Gazette-Journal
Contact: http://www.rgj.com/helpdesk/news/letter-to-editor.php
Website: http://www.rgj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/363
Author: Jaclyn O'Malley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that 
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

SOME ADDICTS COOK THEIR OWN RATHER THAN BUY

Michelle Smith was tired of chasing the bag.

"Sometimes you spend hours or days looking for (methamphetamine) and 
you go to someone who has to go to someone," said Smith, 37. "Then 
you play the wait game and you've already given them money and you 
don't know what they're really doing with it."

So instead of chasing the bag, Smith and a relative decided they 
would make their own meth. Their isolated homes in rural Silver 
Springs were the perfect places to cook meth undetected.

"We did a lot of research on the Internet and bought books," she 
said. "We asked friends and with all the information, together we 
figured it out."

Drug Enforcement Administration agents say they are spending less 
time looking for small-time meth labs in Northern Nevada, 
concentrating instead on efforts to curtail the demand. As a result, 
the number of small meth labs discovered has dropped from 259 in 2001 
to just 50 in 2004.

When drug stores began putting cold medications that included 
chemicals used to make meth behind counters, a practice strengthened 
in March by the Combat Meth Act that was signed into law by President 
Bush, it became harder for addicts to get some of their main 
ingredients: pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine. The 
Combat Meth Act limits a person to buying a maximum of 9 grams a 
month, mandates the products are behind the counter and requires 
purchasers to show identification and sign a logbook.

As a result of the restrictions, more meth is being imported into the 
state and produced primarily in "superlabs" (producing 10 pounds or 
more in a 24-hour period) in Mexico and California.

"The laws these days you can't go and get pills at every place we 
used to," Smith said. "We used to get (a lot) and then we could only 
get like two or three boxes."

"Shopping took forever," she said. "After a while, it was easier just 
to buy it downtown (Reno)."

Smith and her cooking partner mapped out a circuit of drug and feed 
stores in Lyon County, Carson City and Reno where they would buy the 
cold medicine and household products needed to cook meth. It took 
them a whole day to do the shopping.

Smith became an expert at mixing the right amount of Sudafed pills, 
bleach and iodine crystals and collecting red phosphorus off matchbox 
strikers. She also became good at extinguishing meth-cooking fires in 
her kitchen and car.

"My addiction came so quickly, you're just locked in," Smith said. 
"You don't even look past the minute you're in. As long as you have 
dope to do, that's your life."

Before her addiction, Smith survived breast cancer after being 
diagnosed at 22. In high school in California, she got good grades 
and was offered scholarships.

Now she is living in a transitional women's home in Reno, trying to 
regain her life, health, employment and relationship with her 
daughter. With the help and support of her family and group meetings, 
she has stopped using meth.

"It takes away your emotions and feelings ... the love for my 
daughter, I just wasn't into expressing," she said. "I didn't care 
what she thought.... Day to day, it was a numb existence. I couldn't 
see how emaciated I was and how horrible I looked.

"I couldn't see the mess meth created."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman