Tide shifts in meth fight

12/20/2005

BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press

Minnesota has entered the next phase in its fight against methamphetamine, officials say.

After years of spiraling prison admissions, new prison commitments related to the illegal stimulant have leveled off and state corrections facilities are reconsidering the timing of a proposed expansion. The number of homegrown meth labs, which were never the major state source of meth but were a hazard to neighbors and law enforcement, has dramatically decreased, thanks in part to a new law.

Despite the good news in the battle, meth use shows no signs of dropping, officials said.

“I will take it as somewhat of a victory,” said Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner. His deputies are busting one or two labs each month rather than nine labs. But the meth problem hasn’t waned in his hard-hit central Minnesota county.

“Does that mean we are dealing with less methamphetamine? No, the methamphetamine is up.”

Now, state and local officials say, the battle has to turn away from Minnesota-made meth to imported meth produced in massive labs that federal authorities believe are operated by Mexican and Asian drug traffickers.

Before a law passed this year restricting access to cold and allergy pills needed to cook meth in small Minnesota labs, officials believed that about 80 percent of the drug came from outside the state. Now, perhaps up to 90 percent of the meth snorted, injected and smoked in Minnesota comes from so-called “mega-labs” out of the state that produce a cheaper, more potent form of the drug.

“Major drug dealers can follow the headlines, too,” said Deborah Durkin, a meth expert at the Minnesota Health Department.

Rather than coping with labs squirreled away in cars, fishing shacks and cabins, police are working to interrupt the flow of meth coming into the state hidden in passenger cars and distributed all over.

“The success of the last year or so has been quite remarkable. … Unfortunately, meth use continues at a concerning level because it is being imported from other places,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in an interview. “The focus is now going to have to shift to detection and enforcement and punishment activities.”

Compared with last fall, the numbers of meth arrests fell by 75 percent and the amount of meth seized dropped by 66 percent, according to a report released this month. Those numbers, officials say, reflect the success of the new cold and allergy pill restrictions.

Even before the restrictions took effect, the state also reported a drop in the number of meth labs. Officials suggest the numbers may have started dropping as word of the proposed law spread and as retailers voluntarily started curtailing access to the pills.

To some extent the next meth fight — against the imported methamphetamine — allows law enforcement officials to return to more traditional crime-fighting tactics, said Tim O’Malley, assistant superintendent at the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

But as law enforcement officials work to stem the supply of meth, they also see the need to reduce the demand for the highly addictive stimulant, he said.

Sanner, of Stearns County, concurs.

“I really think the next phase of the meth fight will be putting together an education and prevention component. Using law enforcement and law enforcement alone is not getting at the root of this problem,” said Sanner.

Sen. Julie Rosen, a Republican from Fairmont who has been active is pushing anti-meth legislation, said she wants to create a state or even national clearinghouse to help spread information about the drug and to make sure there is enough and appropriate meth treatment available for those who want to kick the habit.

Attorney General Mike Hatch, said no anti-meth fight will be successful without dealing with the treatment end of the problem.

“We need to finance a state treatment program,” said Hatch, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate for governor.
Hatch said federal officials need to seriously clamp down on all the distribution of pseudoephedrine-containing cold and allergy pills, perhaps going even further than the national restrictions Congress is considering.

He also is exploring several different civil tactics to reign in the makers of the ingredients needed to make meth.
Despite the good news on labs and new prison admissions, he said now is no time for celebration.

“There is no victory. This is a mess,” he said.

Minnesota’s new law

Since July 1, the state has limited access to cold and allergy pills that contain pseudoephedrine and can be used to make meth. Under the new law:

• The pills can only be sold from behind pharmacy counters.

• Customers can only buy six grams, about two packages, of the pills at a time and can only buy that limited amount once every 30 days.

• Customers must be adults, show photo identification and sign a log.