A constant battle
Area law enforcement
agencies see fewer labs, but the drug fight continues
By Katie Pizza and Jessica Keller
Argus Observer
Sunday, April 20, 2008 1:46 PM PDT
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| A billboard situated in Payette along U.S. Highway 95 alerts passing drivers to the dangers of methamphetamine. Though area police say the number of local meth labs have decreased, the drug still remains an issue for law enforcement in Idaho and Oregon. |
Ontario - Ontario’s methamphetamine problem is changing shape and reaching across countries to fuel users’ hunger for the drug, local police officials say.
“We’re not seeing the same amount of manufacturing that we used to because of laws on the chemicals used to produce meth,” Ontario Police Department Capt. Mark Alexander said. “The over-the-counter meds are now behind the counter, making it harder to get.”
Medicine products containing ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and phenylpropanolamine — chemicals found in certain brands of common cold and allergy medicines — were moved behind the counter in 2006, after the U.S. Senate passed a law entitled the “Combating Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005.” In 2005, however, the Oregon Legislature passed a similar law moving products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter. Unlike OxyContin, a drug also found behind the counter in an already-prepared form, meth manufacturers would have to steal the cold medicines, or purchase enough from different pharmacies, before going through the process of creating the substance.
“It’s not worth the effort,” Alexander said.
Since the now-regulated medicines are situated behind the counter, there are more legal ramifications for would-be thieves than in the past.
“Since they are behind the counter, they are looking at a robbery rather than a shoplifting,” he said.
Malheur County Sheriff Andy Bentz shares Alexander’s viewpoint and also said the number of people willing to make the product is decreasing, leading to a dip in county meth lab numbers.
“We don’t see the same amount of labs because of chemical laws,” Bentz said. “The access to the ephedrine is reduced. The other reason, and this is just my opinion, is that there is only a certain amount of the population that is willing to do it. As they go to jail, get treatment or die, there reaches a point when you have less people making the meth.”
Malheur County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Rob Hunsucker also mentioned the decrease in local meth labs.
“For about the past five years, there has been a decrease in labs across the state and in the neighboring state of Idaho,” Hunsucker said. “The meth is smuggled in from southern states.”
Alexander said methamphetamine labs are also in Mexico, with the illegal drugs transported here.
“Only a small amount of people want to do it because it kills,” Bentz said. “At anyone’s level, that resonates with them.”
The drug itself does not represent the only way methamphetamine can be fatal.
“Usually people think the labs are very sophisticated, but it’s very crude,” Alexander said. “The chemicals are just laying around, nothing fancy. We’d see them in garages, motel rooms, people would just rent a room for a day and make it. It’s just with the chemicals used to make it, it’s a dangerous thing to do. Chemicals change and can explode.”
Meth possession numbers have fluctuated since the meth laws were enacted.
“We had 133 drug possession cases in 2006. Very few of them were anything but meth or marijuana,” Alexander said. “In 2007, we had 187 drug possession cases. So far, we’ve had 30 drug possessions.”
However, Alexander said if meth no longer existed, little would change.
“If it wasn’t meth, it would be a different drug,” he said. “You’d still have the same crimes.”
Alexander said those crimes, which include theft, assaults, fraud and identify theft, stem from addicts’ need to pay for their fix.
“They write bad checks, forge checks, steal credit cards to purchase items to sell for drugs. There are also construction thefts, where they steal property off of construction sites — copper, metal — then sell it to recycling places to make money. You see a lot of that throughout the Treasure Valley,” he said.
Hunsucker also highlighted the setting where meth is typically used.
“People use cocaine in a social setting,” he said. “Meth is a private-type thing. (Users) often have low self-esteem and suffer from depression. Lots of this characterizes why they use meth. It’s easy to get. People are drawn.”
He also said that meth usage goes beyond Oregon and Idaho’s borders.
“Meth is the drug of choice in the Northwest,” Hunsucker said. “It’s the easiest to get, and it’s still widely distributed, even with the restrictions. It’s related to over 80 percent of our crime rates, like property crime and crimes against a person.”
Media attention makes a
difference
Circumstances regarding methamphetamine have definitely improved in Payette County, though methamphetamine use is still high, Sheriff Chad Huff said.
“I don’t know if it’s actually changed a whole lot as far as the use goes,” he said. “It’s still prevalent in our area, no doubt.”
Huff, however, said he does see a positive impact from the media attention recently given to methamphetamine use with the Idaho Meth Project.
“I think that’s helping — don’t even do it one time,” Huff said of the “Not Even Once” motto the campaign uses. “Those meth ads are pretty enlightening. I think, especially, kids see those and they go ‘holy cow.’”
Huff said what he has seen is a definite decrease in the smaller local labs, which he attributes to the stricter laws regarding the purchase of products with pseudoephedrine. He said what law enforcement in Payette County see more of now is methamphetamine coming from Mexico.
“It’s cheaper, it’s easier to get and it’s easier to get in large amounts,” Huff said, adding that is what he has been told by his drug task force officers.
That, however, has led to a change in how law enforcement in Payette County combats the meth problem.
“It changes your focus from seeking labs to actually trying to find the people that sell it,” Huff said. “Distribution and using is going to be the main focus and not so much on manufacturing.”
He said it is still fairly easy for people to manufacture the drug, but the ingredients are harder to find.
Since Payette County law enforcement and other law enforcement agencies in the United States can’t do much to stop meth manufacturers in Mexico, Huff said, Payette County law officers instead target crime in a different way. Methamphetamine will always come up from Mexico, Huff said, because it is not that well regulated in that country, so area law enforcement takes the battle to the streets locally.
“People who use meth also do other crimes, and so that’s the area that affects us locally is the crimes the meth users commit,” Huff said, adding meth-related crimes run the gamut from assault and battery to theft, fraud and burglary.
“If we can curb that or at least get the people who use meth help, or if help doesn’t work, put them in jail and take them off the streets ... then we are doing our job,” he said. “We’re stopping a whole bunch of different crimes.”
Huff said, in addition to state laws regulating ingredients associated with meth manufacturing, the area’s High Desert Task Force has also helped, adding since it started in 2004, burglary and thefts and other crime in unincorporated areas of Payette County has gone down.
“It’s still that way today,” he said. “Last year was the best year I’ve had as sheriff.”
He said the county was low on thefts and burglary, but it saw an increase in self-generated crime, meaning the police officers stopped the offenders in the act of committing a crime. He said what he is most concerned about as sheriff is the number of cases solved or cleared. In 2006, of the number of crimes committed, 83.6 percent were cleared.
“I’m not going to say we’re winning the war on drugs, but I think we’re doing a substantially better job than we have in the past,” he said.
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