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September 9, 2010

Officials discuss horrors, successes of meth battle

Lisa Trigg The Tribune-Star

INDIANAPOLIS — When it comes to the battle to reduce clandestine production of methamphetamine, Robert Bovett has been there.

Bovett was the voice of experience before the Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee on Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse.

The committee met to discuss how to best address the state’s overwhelming methamphetamine problem. Both electronic tracking and prescription-only status were the chief options presented.

As a district attorney in Oregon, Bovett authored that state’s legislation to make pseudoephedrine products available by prescription only. Pseudoephedrine, or PSE, is the prime ingredient in the meth manufacturing process.

Oregon has seen a drastic reduction in the number of meth labs since its prescription-only law went into effect in 2006. While there still is a meth use problem, police do not find the labs that once littered the state.

Mexico has banned PSE entirely, Bovett said, and that had a significant impact on the production of meth there. But, a weaker alternative ingredient was found, making Mexican meth much less potent.

“The meth coming out of Mexico is weak,” Bovett said. “That is good because this means there is less available. But there is more pressure to cook meth here in the U.S., so that is increasing in the smurfing.”

Smurfing is the practice of purchasing up to the legal limit of PSE products allowed by groups of people who go from pharmacy to pharmacy to obtain the drug. The “smurfers” then sell the PSE to a cooker, or trade it for meth.

“Smurfing happens all across the nation,” Bovett said.

A lot of smurfing is diverted to small labs, such as those most often found in Indiana. But in the western U.S., all of the PSE goes to “super labs” in central California where meth is produced in mass quantities to be distributed.

When Oregon was considering the prescription-only status for PSE in 2005, there was a lot of public outcry. Opponents cited inconvenience, higher healthcare costs, impact on the poor, forcing PSE purchases out of Oregon to other states, and that the law simply wouldn’t work.

“None of these things materialized,” Bovett said.

The state has since seen a significant decrease in crime, and he said he believes making PSE a controlled substance had a significant roll in that statistic.

Since then, Mississippi has also gone to prescription-only, and the country of New Zealand has enacted PSE restrictions.

Bovett cautioned the legislators to question the motivation of the people who oppose making PSE a prescription-only drug.

“I think there is a legitimate reason to have this whole class of drugs labeled as a controlled substance,” he said.

Intense debate accompanied the presentation to Indiana legislators to make the key ingredient of methamphetamine prescription-only.

Prior to 1976, pseudoephedrine was available by prescription only. But in the 30-plus years since then, it has become the prime ingredient in methamphetamine manufactured in homemade labs around the country.

“It is huge. We know that,” Rep Linda Lawson, chairman of the Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee said.

During an all-morning session with about 20 presenters, legislators saw graphic photos of children who had been burned, poisoned, abused and neglected by their meth-addicted families.

In fact, Holly Hopper, director of the Drug Endangered Children Training Center, said a lot of “horrific abuse” has been found among children who live in homes where meth labs and meth use occur. Sexually transmitted diseases have been found among children younger than age six years, she said.

Children who live in these homes often fall victim not only to their relatives, but also to the other meth abusers who pass through these children’s homes.

Some of the photos showed children with chemical burns or with broken glass in their feet. Others showed children in filthy homes with drug pipes and meth labs easily within reach. In one photo, a child’s nebulizer for asthma had been used as part of a meth lab.

“Children do a lot of mimicking,” Hopper said, displaying a photo of a child’s own playtime rendition of a meth lab.

And often in meth homes, older children are left to care for younger children because the parents are so drugged out they often forget they even have children.

Meth abuse is often passed through the generations, she noted, showing a photo of a young grandmother, with her teenage daughter, and a couch full of young children — all bearing signs of meth use or neglect.

While one of the key speakers was Bovett, most of the speakers had their own facts and horror stories to share about the meth abuse problem in Indiana.

Mark Sentor, mayor of Plymouth, said the meth problem really struck home for him when a meth lab was discovered in a middle-class neighborhood just two doors away from his own home.

Judge Jonathan Webster of Jennings County said he has seen meth use ravage his county.

“Hardly a day goes by that we don’t deal with something related to meth,” the judge said, whether it’s home foreclosures, or crime or domestic violence or child neglect. “The problem is these people are so strung out on drugs they can’t go to work, can’t pay bills or pay for their home or cars, and the family loses it all and goes on welfare.”

First Sgt. Niki Crawford of the Indiana State Police reviewed the state’s battle with the meth problem and its high cost to law enforcement.

Crawford said ISP’s recently launched statewide electronic tracking system will be a valuable tool to help local police identify meth cookers and their PSE suppliers.

Many facets of state and local government are affected by meth labs, Crawford said, and a 2009 study by the Rand Corp. found that in 2005, meth use cost Americans $24 billion. In that year, Indiana was eighth in the nation in meth lab seizures. The cost of cleanup of meth labs, incarceration of meth users, court system costs, and medical care took a heavy toll on taxpayer dollars.

Dennis Wichern, a federal agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency, said his Indianapolis office focuses on meth traffickers bringing the drug from Mexico to Indiana. But he has seen the number of mom and pop meth labs growing around the state, and he credits that to smurfing.

Wichern said that while electronic tracking of PSE purchases has led to some active meth labs, “It has not had any effect on stopping the growth of meth labs.”

He called the electronic tracking system a reactive, rather than proactive, effort and said the real effort should be on controlling the chemicals associated with producing the drug.

Jerry Vance of the Indiana Department of Corrections said the state spends a lot of money housing inmates with methamphetamine addiction. But the DOC has come up with programs to treat offenders.

Those programs result in cost benefit to the state because of sentence reduction for completion of a meth addiction program, a reduced number of conduct reports among prisoners and lower recidivism. Of the inmates who complete the DOC program, about 25 percent find themselves back in prison in the coming years. But the general population recidivism rate is about 38 percent.

State legislators will again take up the issue of meth labs when the committee meets again in October. Legislation could be presented during next year’s General Assembly.

Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.

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