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Associated Press
08/24/2009
New Methamphetamine Formula Avoids Anti-Drug Laws
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_us/us_meth_s_new_method
The MEDTOX Journal
via Youth Bridge Inc
08/15/2009
The One Pot Method Of Methamphetamine
http://youthbridge.com/the-one-pot-method-of-methamphetamine/
08/24/2009
New Methamphetamine Formula Avoids Anti-Drug Laws
TULSA, Okla. – This is the new formula for methamphetamine: a two-liter soda bottle, a few handfuls of cold pills and some noxious chemicals. Shake the bottle and the volatile reaction produces one of the world's most addictive drugs.
Only a few years ago, making meth required an elaborate lab — with filthy containers simmering over open flames, cans of flammable liquids and hundreds of pills. The process gave off foul odors, sometimes sparked explosions and was so hard to conceal that dealers often "cooked" their drugs in rural areas.
But now drug users are making their own meth in small batches using a faster, cheaper and much simpler method with ingredients that can be carried in a knapsack and mixed on the run. The "shake-and-bake" approach has become popular because it requires a relatively small number of pills of the decongestant pseudoephedrine — an amount easily obtained under even the toughest anti-meth laws that have been adopted across the nation to restrict large purchases of some cold medication.
"Somebody somewhere said 'Wait this requires a lot less pseudoephedrine, and I can fly under the radar,'" said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
An Associated Press review of lab seizures and interviews with state and federal law enforcement agents found that the new method is rapidly spreading across the nation's midsection and is contributing to a spike in the number of meth cases after years of declining arrests.
The new formula does away with the clutter of typical meth labs, and it can turn the back seat of a car or a bathroom stall into a makeshift drug factory. Some addicts have even made the drug while driving.
The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. No flame is required.
Using the new formula, batches of meth are much smaller but just as dangerous as the old system, which sometimes produces powerful explosions, touches off intense fires and releases drug ingredients that must be handled as toxic waste.
"If there is any oxygen at all in the bottle, it has a propensity to make a giant fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control. "You're not dealing with rocket scientists here anyway. If they get unlucky at all, it can have a very devastating reaction."
One little mistake, such as unscrewing the bottle cap too fast, can result in a huge blast, and police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states have linked dozens of flash fires this year — some of them fatal — to meth manufacturing.
"Every meth recipe is dangerous, but in this one, if you don't shake it just right, you can build up too much pressure, and the container can pop," Woodward said.
When fire broke out in older labs, "it was usually on a stove in a back room or garage and people would just run, but when these things pop, you see more extreme burns because they are holding it. There are more fires and more burns because of the close proximity, whether it's on a couch or driving down the road."
After the chemical reaction, what's left is a crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or inject. They often discard the bottle, which now contains a poisonous brown and white sludge. Dozens of reports describe toxic bottles strewn along highways and rural roads in states with the worst meth problems.
The do-it-yourself method creates just enough meth for a few hits, allowing users to make their own doses instead of buying mass-produced drugs from a dealer.
"It simplified the process so much that everybody's making their own dope," said Kevin Williams, sheriff of Marion County, Ala., about 80 miles west of Birmingham. "It can be your next-door neighbor doing it. It can be one of your family members living downstairs in the basement."
A typical meth lab would normally take days to generate a full-size batch of meth, which would require a heat source and dozens, maybe hundreds, of boxes of cold pills.
But because the new method uses far less pseudoephedrine, small-time users are able to make the drug in spite of a federal law that bars customers from buying more than 9 grams — roughly 300 pills — a month.
The federal government and dozens of states adopted restrictions on pseudoephedrine in 2005, and the number of lab busts fell dramatically.
The total number of clandestine meth lab incidents reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration fell from almost 17,400 in 2003 to just 7,347 in 2006.
But the number of busts has begun to climb again, and some authorities blame the shake-and-bake method for renewing meth activity.
The AP review of 14 states found:
• At least 10 states reported increases in meth lab seizures or meth-related arrests from 2007 to 2008.
• The Mississippi State Crime Lab participated in 457 meth incidents through May 31, up from 122 for the same period a year ago — a nearly 275 percent increase.
• Several states, such as Oklahoma and Tennessee, are on pace this year to double the number of labs busted in 2008. The director of Tennessee's meth task force said the pace of lab busts in his state is projected to be about 1,300 for 2009, compared with 815 for all of 2008.
Some states lack a central database to monitor cold medicine sales, so meth cooks circumvent state laws by pill shopping in multiple cities and states — a practice known as "smurfing" that allows them to stay under restrictions placed on sales.
Traci Fruit, a special agent with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, said law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly frustrated because there's no way to tell who is buying what "unless we go from store to store ourselves and pull up the records."
Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas have been hotbeds for meth use because an important ingredient in the traditional method, anhydrous ammonia, was easily available from tanks on farms where it's used as a fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous ammonia and instead uses ammonium nitrate, a compound easily found in instant cold packs that can be purchased at any drug store.
Data from the Justice Department and the DEA data suggest the method could only be in its early stages, and "shake-and-bake" labs have recently been discovered as far north as Indiana and as far east as West Virginia.
States surveyed by the AP also included: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
While many law enforcement agencies are just learning how to spot the new labs, other states are rushing to close loopholes in laws limiting the sale of meth ingredients.
Mississippi Sen. Sid Albritton, said that state's law — modeled after Oklahoma's — forces buyers to show identification and makes stores keep a log of cold medicine sales. But the problem in Mississippi is lack of technology to instantly log purchases in a central database.
"You have to understand going in that drugs are an evolutionary process," said Albritton, a former police detective and narcotics officer. "The day after we pass a law, they are going to look for ways to circumvent that."
___
Associated Press writers Roxana Hegeman in Wichita, Kan.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Tom Parsons in Little Rock, Ark.; Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Jim Salter in St. Louis; and John Zenor in Montgomery, Ala., contributed to this report.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090824/ap_on_re_us/us_meth_s_new_method
The MEDTOX Journal
via Youth Bridge Inc
08/15/2009
The One Pot Method Of Methamphetamine
Have you gone to your corner drug store looking for an instant cold pack to treat a sport or exercise injury recently? Was the counter depleted? Were there any packs at all that were available for purchase? Well, this is a situation that’s occurring in drug stores throughout the country, especially stores located in areas where methamphetamine abuse is already rampant. In the last few years, state and local law enforcement agencies have successfully cracked down on the availability of chemicals that methamphetamine “cookers” need to make the drug. A cat and mouse game has ensued and has forced “cookers” to use some imagination as to how and what they can use to make methamphetamine.
One of the high value chemicals in what’s called the One-Pot Method of methamphetamine manufacture is ammonium nitrate; this substance is the core ingredient in cold packs. When ammonium nitrate is dissolved in water by breaking an inner seal in a self-contained package, the nature of the reaction is such that heat is absorbed from the near environment. Technically termed an endothermic reaction, the mixture of ammonium nitrate and water becomes instantly colder than the environment surrounding it. Ammonium nitrate’s chemical role in making a cold pack cold makes it valuable towards the production of small lots of methamphetamine. Depending on the amount of methamphetamine being served up, a “cooker” may have a need for several individual packets or several cases of them. A couple of different substances and chemicals are required to make methamphetamine, ammonium nitrate is just one component.
The One Pot Method for “cooking” methamphetamine is an apt name for the process involved. The important ingredients are all mixed in one vessel or container to bring about the various reactions that are necessary to make the powerful stimulant. Pseudoephedrine is still the most important component in the making of the drug. Although crackdowns on pseudoephedrine sales and a move to the use of ephedrine-less (i.e. phenylepherine in Sudafed PE) cold medicine formulas have worked in terms of making the cold medicine harder to find, cookers can still get it from networks that specialize in finding it.
One Pot Method “laboratories” are really not laboratories at all, they’re more likely to be nothing more than isolated campgrounds or tightly confined bathtub spaces that are conducive to disposing the chemical leftovers and masking the odors from the toxic stew that is being brewed up. Reaction vessels are usually nothing more than Coleman camp fuel cans, or one liter plastic soft drink bottles, the latter being the most commonly found. Rolling labs in the trunks of cars are in vogue these days too; methamphetamine is brewing in the trunk as the cooker drives around town contemplating his next move. Leftover chemicals from the concoction are poured out roadside or down a drain or sewer. The various interacting ingredients can leave behind a very caustic solution that can cause chemical burns to the skin. Careless handling of the “pot” could lead to an explosion or vessel rupture that could result in contact with skin and clothes. As readers can imagine, like all methods of methamphetamine manufacture, the One Pot Method is a risky venture that can harm anyone who happens to be near it. If someone were to discover the components of a suspected “cook,” call 911 and alert local law enforcement authorities as to what’s been found; don’t touch any of the components.
Methamphetamine produced from the One Pot Method is likely to be rather impure and contaminated. But for the inveterate methamphetamine (crank, ice, gak, speed) addict, the One Pot Method suffices for immediate needs; this is not a method for the production of large lots of methamphetamine. It doesn’t take much to make up a batch of methamphetamine these days; a little ingenuity and networking can make it all come together. Too bad the initiative and creativity of the “cooker” is directed at something that is destined to harm and possibly destroy.
Reproduced with permission from The MEDTOX® Journal
http://youthbridge.com/the-one-pot-method-of-methamphetamine/
But seriously, these recipes have been available on a lot of forums since the 90's at least. 8)
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
