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: Alex Newman 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. METH LABS VANISHING FROM STREETS The "mom-and-pop" meth lab seems to be going the way of all mom-and-pop operations of the past: the gas station, the hardware store and the grocery. According to local law enforcement, whereas meth cooks once learned the recipe from family members or sold it for more drugs, Mexican-based drug-trafficking organizations now rule the meth trade in Nevada, producing pounds of high-quality crystal methamphetamine in superlabs in California and Mexico and slipping the drug across the border. "Five years ago it was labs, labs, labs and that was the issue," said Reno Deputy Chief Ron Glensor, who attended the 2006 Methamphetamine Summit in Memphis in May. "We're no different than what many other jurisdictions are saying their situation is. The mom-and-pop labs are reduced significantly and now they're dealing with the cheap methamphetamine coming into the country over the border or from Asia." In 2005, officials seized just seven labs in Washoe County and 50 statewide, down from 284 in 2000. Officials say many factors contributed to the fall of meth labs. But some say clandestine labs still operate freely in Washoe County because no one is looking for them. "There's more than we know out there because we don't have the manpower to go investigate them," said Lt. Jim Forbus, a former commander of the now-defunct Consolidated Narcotics Unit and current leader of the Washoe County Lab Team. A vanishing problem? Mike Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing and the author of a law enforcement guidebook about clandestine labs, attributes the decline in meth labs to restrictions on the retail sales of such precursor chemicals as pseudophedrine, found in Sudafed and other cold medicines. "I think without a doubt the changes in the retail restriction (has reduced labs)," Scott said. "It's an unintended consequence that it's going to enhance the markets for imports." The Combat Meth Epidemic Act passed in March by Congress now limits the amount of meth ingredients such as cold pills that can be bought at once. After Sept. 30, people buying drugs containing pseudophedrine -- the key ingredient in methamphetamine -- will be required to show ID and sign a logbook. Measures like this and agreements with local stores selling chemicals such as tincture of iodine, another ingredient in meth, have made it harder for cooks to assemble labs, experts said. Cheaper, more potent Mexican meth has also reduced demand for the home-cooked crank or powdered meth. Drug dealers arrested by the Regional Street Enforcement Team tell detectives their supplies come from California or Mexico and nothing is made locally, Glensor said. But that doesn't mean all the labs are gone, Forbus said. "We rarely see powder (methamphetamine) anymore, but we know it's out there," Forbus said. "It's just like soda pop. Others can buy Pepsi and Coke, but others can only afford Shasta Cola." Forbus leads the Washoe County Lab Team, made up of five supervisors, nine deputies and representatives from the Washoe County Health Department and the crime lab. The team responds only to known labs and members are paid overtime through a federal grant. "We just don't have the manpower or the time," Forbus said. "Our role now is a reactive one." Reactive enforcement Washoe County deputies stumbled across a meth lab on a Saturday afternoon in March. High winds had blown a Sun Valley woman's shed near a gas line on East 8th Avenue. The woman told a deputy she saw something out of place. She had watched another woman leave her travel trailer and fill up buckets of water at an abandoned house on the same property. Deputies questioned the woman, Shawnie Kunchick, and her boyfriend, Jon Davis. Davis and two deputies were speaking behind the back of the trailer when Davis told them he was going to be in trouble for manufacturing, authorities said. A deputy asked Davis if he just said he had a meth lab in the trailer. Davis began to cry and said "these guys brought it over." Then he led deputies directly to the lab. "Davis entered the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain," Deputy Wes Bloom wrote in his incident report. "I looked inside and saw a stove burner sitting on the sink, a hypodermic needle sitting on the back of the sink, a clear bottle in the medicine cabinet that was labeled 'nitric acid.' Above the bottle was a yellow pill bottled labeled 'E ONLY' filled with white, flakey shards inside, suspected of being methamphetamine." Forbus said the lab team pulled 15 gallons of waste out of the travel trailer. The Sun Valley trailer, found on March 23, was the third lab this year, Forbus said. A drain to enforce? Scott's guidebook, published by the Department of Justice, helps police analyze their local lab problem and find an effective solution. The guidebook says finding and seizing labs may not be an effective enforcement tactic. Labs are easy for cooks to assemble and move, but costly and time-consuming for law enforcement to process. "It might be a reasonable thing for a community to say, 'We need to shift resources away from lab seizures into things like treatment," Scott said. Communities not hunting for the labs need to rely on other ways of finding out about illicit activity, such as alert systems from local hospitals about possible overdoses or a tip line for citizens to report suspicions, he said. During the late 1990s, the now-defunct Consolidated Narcotics Unit had two detectives seeking out meth labs and following up tips. The detectives discovered big and small labs, as many as 50 a year, until 2000, when the unit focused instead on street-level drugs. The SET team, a regional force made up of undercover detectives from Reno and Sparks police, University of Nevada, Reno police and the Washoe County Sheriff's office, now targets street-level to mid-level drug traffickers. "I don't categorize the personal use users as a big problem in the drug trade," said Sgt. Dave Evans, one of the leaders of the SET team. "You're always going to find somebody who's doing it. Meth labs are usually processed as a cleanup process. Very few ever get prosecuted. There's an enormous amount of money that goes into them." [Sidebar] David Payton and his wife lived in a house on Quaking Aspen Road in Palomino Valley for five years, until they moved away and Payton decided to rent the place out. In February 2000, he got a call from police; renters had transformed the home into a toxic methamphetamine lab. Payton was stuck with almost $50,000 in repairs and cleanup costs. "It had my wife at the time in tears for weeks and weeks," Payton said. "I was stomping mad. We were really, really victimized there." Chemicals stained the walls, drapes, carpet and furniture. The meth "cooks" dumped the waste down the toilet and flushed it into the septic tank -- which had a broken line and spread chemicals all over the property. The renters, Marilyn Altergott Dustin and husband Kenneth Anderson, had been evicted by Payton but returned without his knowledge. For 13 months, they made and sold several pounds of meth each month. [Sidebar] Small Labs, Big Problems Authorities say mom-and-pop meth labs are typically more dangerous than a superlab because the home cooks are inexperienced. "They're small but they're equally as toxic," Reno DEA Agent Mark Snyder said. "They might be more dangerous because the size of the labs and the stability inside a trailer, a bathroom, a car, in a motor home. They're very dangerous." Paul Donald, a hazardous materials specialist with the Washoe County Health Department who has responded to nearly every meth lab and dump site in Northern Nevada, remembers a case about eight years ago, when a cooker caused an explosion and sustained severe chemical burns. Instead of going to a hospital, the man rented a hotel room and set up another meth lab there. "After three days of excruciating pain he couldn't take it anymore and went to a hospital," Donald said. "But look at the potential. This guy has already blown it up once and here he is cooking in a hotel-casino, exposing the public." Cooks can start fires and cause explosions while making methamphetamine. The chemicals stain the walls, carpet and furniture, making it toxic for residents, often young children. When cooks are done, they frequently dump the waste and garbage in rivers or down drains or leave bags of glassware and stripped matchbook covers in the desert, Bureau of Land Management officials said. Cleanup costs for the average lab can cost $2,500 to $10,000, according to the Department of Justice. Superlabs can cost up to $150,000. Donald has stories about chemicals melting clothes off of first responders to a lab inside a motor home and the interior of a home where the walls were blackened from several explosions. [Sidebar] Production Methods # Red Phosphorus or "Mexican" meth: Primary chemicals are ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, hydriodic acid and red phosphorus. This method is normally used by Mexican drug traffickers or cookers trained by Mexican traffickers to produce larger amounts of d-methamphetamine. It is typically seen on the West Coast and is the method most frequently used in Washoe County. # Cold Cook: Requires ephedrine, iodine and red phosphorus. Chemicals are mixed in a plastic container, where methamphetamine oil precipitates into another plastic container through a tube attached to each cup. The mixture is typically heated by sunlight or by burying the containers in hot sand to produce small quantities of high quality methamphetamine. # Nazi Method: Primary chemicals are sodium or lithium metal and ephedrine. Normally produces up to 1-ounce quantities of high-quality methamphetamine and is frequently used by independent methamphetamine cookers. The Nazi method also requires anhydrous ammonia, and is usually the method of choice in the Midwest. # P2P: Requires phenyl-2-propanone and aluminum in a complex process that produces low-quality methamphetamine. This method is normally associated with outlaw motorcycle gangs and is uncommon because phenyl-2-propanone is difficult to procure. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice, RGJ research [Sidebar] SIGNS OF A METH LAB # Unusually strong chemical odors such as ether, ammonia and acetone # Excess amounts of cold medicines containing ephedrine or pseudophendrine # Empty pill bottles or blister packs # Starter fluid cans opened from the bottom # Heating sources such as hotplates/torches # Excess coffee filters, baggies, matches, lithium batteries # Cookware with white residue # Glassware, mason jars or other glass containers # Plastic tubing, funnels or hoses leading outside for ventilation # Drain cleaner, paint thinner, toluene, denatured alcohol, ammonia, acid, starter fluid, antifreeze, hydrogen peroxide, rock salt, iodine, lantern or camp stove fuel # Excessive amounts of trash, particularly chemical containers, coffee filters with red stains, duct tape rolls or empty cans of paint thinner or pieces of red-stained cloth around the property # Extensive security measures or attempts to ensure privacy such as "No Trespassing" or "Beware of Dog" signs, fences and large trees and shrubs. # Curtains always drawn or windows blackened or covered with aluminum foil on residences, garages, sheds or other structures # Frequent visitors, particularly at unusual times # Renters who pay their landlords in cash SOURCE: Partnership for a Drug-Free America - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman