Pubdate: Sat, 4 Dec 2010
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Page: A5
Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Justin Scheck
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH LABS MAKE RETURN TO U.S.

Federal drug agents are reporting a resurgence of methamphetamine 
production in such areas as rural California and suburban Georgia-a 
consequence, they suspect, of meth crackdowns in Mexico.

The resurgence over the past two years comes after more than a decade 
of falling U.S. meth production, and may signal a return to the days 
when toxic meth byproducts littered roadsides and polluted waterways 
across rural America.

Illicit meth labs declined after U.S. laws curbed the availability of 
ingredients needed to manufacture the drug, a potent and highly 
addictive stimulant. As large-scale production, especially in the 
West, moved to Mexico, many U.S. dealers began importing Mexican meth.

Now, in a setback to efforts to curb unlawful drugs, meth labs are 
back on the rise in places like Riverside. Once a hotbed of meth 
production, this desert county saw a decline in production over the 
past 15 years. But officials there have busted 15 meth labs this 
year, up more than 30% from last year and the most since 2007, 
according to the Riverside Sheriff's office.

On Thursday, San Francisco police also raided a meth lab in the 
city's tony Laurel Heights neighborhood. Earlier this week, federal 
and state agents raided a suburban Atlanta meth lab and found 
hundreds of pounds of the drug, one of the biggest busts in recent 
years. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 
officials in Georgia busted 125 labs last year, up from 85 in 2008 
and 68 in 2007.

State statistics for this year were unavailable, but nationwide the 
DEA said, it has funded 10,481 cleanups of clandestine labs so far in 
2010, up from 7,530 in 2009 and 4,830 in 2008.

John Donnelly, a DEA agent in central California, said that since 
2009, he has seen an increasing number of meth labs in the state. He 
blames Mexican drug violence for shifting production to California. 
"There's a war there," he said.

Federal and California law-enforcement officials also point to 
resourceful U.S. drug producers who developed new ways to circumvent 
laws against making the drug, which can be produced from legal 
substances including pseudoephedrine-a common cold medicine-and 
various industrial chemicals, some of them toxic.

Mr. Donnelly said American meth-makers have expanded their use of a 
technique called "smurfing," when groups of people go to pharmacies 
to buy small, legally acceptable quantities of pseudoephedrine, which 
then are pooled to make meth.

Mexico's meth crackdown began in 2005, when the government banned 
imports of pseudoephedrine. The move was largely successful, said 
James Cunningham, an epidemiologist at the University of Arizona 
College of Medicine. He published findings this year that 
meth-related hospitalizations in Mexico and Texas fell after the 
restrictions were imposed.

Still, the picture is murky, with meth-lab arrests this year likely 
decreasing slightly from last year, Mr. Donnelly said. Some areas, 
such as California's San Bernardino County, have seen declining meth 
production, according to the San Bernardino sheriff's office. Some 
studies have shown declining meth use nationwide in recent years, 
though a federal government study published in September estimated 
the number of U.S. residents who used meth within a month of being 
surveyed increased more than 50%, to 502,000, from 2008 to 2009.

Sgt. David Teets of the Riverside Sheriff's Office said agents in 
September discovered a meth "super lab," a facility on a scale that 
Riverside agents hadn't seen for more than two years.

It wasn't a traditional meth-production facility, and instead refined 
liquid meth into crystal form, Mr. Teets said. The liquid version, 
easier to hide than powder, is coming from Mexico, he said, often 
smuggled in gas tanks.

"It's like when you squeeze a balloon and it pops out somewhere 
else," Mr. Teets said of the seeming U.S. resurgence.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake