Local Officials Want Feds Help Fighting Meth Epidemic

[publius]

By their logic we should allow the legal possession of smallpox.

Why? Is there a large black market for smallpox, costing us billions per year to incarcerate the users, and resulting in policies like the abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws to punish crimes without any criminal conviction against a person?

Has the war on the smallpox black market resulted in people who should know better deciding to stretch the Constitution in ways that wind up affirming federal gun laws?

 

[tyme]

If you can't aquire anhydrous, you can use the Red P(Red Phosphorus) method. They get the red phosphorus from match heads. A nice byproduct of thi method of production is phosphene gas, which is odorless, colorless and lethal.

phosgene: "Colorless liquid or gas with a sweet odor like hay at low concentrations, sharp pungent odor at high concentrations..."
phosphine: "Colorless gas with a characteristic, fishy odor."
(from chemfinder.camsoft.com)

Not exactly odorless. There aren't a lot of gasses that are easily produceable, undetectable and lethal (ignoring the effects of displaced oxygen... in that case N2, which makes up roughly 78% of the earth's atmosphere, is also lethal). Carbon Monoxide is the major one.

When meth production is run improperly (which it usually is because of the legal risks involved -- nobody involved wants to invest in proper lab equipment, and people who already have proper lab equipment generally don't get involved in illegal drug production), there are all sorts of hazards, but they're no different from hazards in any other chem lab. What really annoys me is crap like this:

(http://www.co.weld.co.us/departments/health/environmental/health_methlab.html)
10. What are the health risks for those involved in meth lab production?

Some chemicals used in meth production present a danger of injury or death from fire or explosion. In addition, there are possible risks of exposure to infectious disease (e.g., AIDS, hepatitis B) in the event of skin puncture by drug paraphernalia.

The cook has the potential of toxicity from all routes of exposure; i.e., ingestion and injection of the drug, spills of chemicals onto the skin, and inhalation of vapors. Inhalation and skin exposure are the most likely routes of exposure for other persons exposed to the drug lab environment. Children living in the drug lab environment typically are in contact with the floor, thus have a higher potential for exposure because of the possibility of ingesting chemicals in addition to inhalation or skin exposure.

I could say the same thing about highschool chem labs. Various people in my HS chem classes were handling toxic salts without gloves; one (not in school, but over one summer) stabbed himself with a syringe filled with benzene (not injecting any noticeable amount); another was playing drummer boy with a thermometer, Murphy happened, and there was Mercury all over the lab for days or weeks until it all evaporated. The best I personally managed was to slice a finger open --through gloves-- with a copper ribbon, in a lab with who-knows-what on my gloves and on the ribbon.

Let's ban chemistry. It's for the children. Let's go back to 19th-century living. No high-quality powders. No plastics. This should be fun.

As for the statement of risk of transmission of disease... that would pretty much be the last thing on my mind if I were making meth. I think they're confusing drug use with drug production. Of course, the whiny liberal health services goons who write those sorts of fact sheets don't tend to be troubled with facts, and they'll distort anything they have to to support current anti-drug policies.

Why not decriminalize inherently dangerous but victimless activities like cooking meth... so that people who know what they're doing take over for uneducated thugs (who themselves are probably on meth while they cook it)?

 

[cracked butt]

Why not decriminalize inherently dangerous but victimless activities like cooking meth... so that people who know what they're doing take over for uneducated thugs (who themselves are probably on meth while they cook it)?

Why not decriminalize pipe bomb making? You know they are like fun and stuff and its really just a victimless crime.

 

[Jeff White]

tyme,
How many meth labs have you personally discovered, seized or dismantled? This is hardly kids playing with a hobby shop chemistry set.

I have two good friends who lost about 30% of their lung capacity after exposure to anhydrous ammonia in a rolling meth lab. They are fine now, but they have a good chance of a slow painful death from emphesema etc. as they get older. I have another friend who nearly lost his sight after exposure to anhydrous when he came upon some cooks stealing it while on patrol.

I guess it would be ok to have a home lab next door to your children's school or daycare center? After all, the anhydrous doesn't always get escape from the plastic gas cans they sometimes steal it in, or if they are more sophisticated, there is a good chance they'll replace the valve in the LP gas bottle before it corrodes through and releases anhydrous throughout the neighborhood. After all, there is a good chance the kids won't get a big enough enough whiff to damage their lungs or blind them.

Let's just get rid of all the zoning and other laws. Perhaps your neighbors are budding nuclear scientists, why not let them dispose of the nuclear material from the local powerplant and hospital? What the heck, nuclear particls are small and the chances of them having an accident and you or your loved ones inhaling any are really pretty small. Of course your hobbyist nuclear engineers probably aren't stoned out of their minds when they are playing with their home centrifuge...........

Scare tactics to promote an anti drug agenda?? I hate to tell you this my friend, but they don't use trace amounts (like you'll find in your high school chemistry lab) of this stuff to make meth, How many high school chemistry labs have you seen burned out, blown up or responsible for the deaths of students? Let's say nationwide in oh say the last 50 years? Try your google foo and see how many you can come up with. I'm betting that I could beat the nationwide number of high school chemistry lab accidents nationwide in a 50 years period, with 1 year statistics from a couple counties around here.

Perhaps anarchy would be preferable to some here..........

Jeff

 

[Crosshair]

If exposure to anhydrous ammonia is such a consern, then isue masks to the officers. Train them in how to use them. If you stop a "rolling lab" withdraw to you're car and get the mask. I'm sorry to sound like a smartass, but I wonder why masks arn't issued. Especialy watching COPS and the officers busting a lab with little to no protection.

 

[publius]

Why not decriminalize pipe bomb making?

Why? Is there a large black market for pipe bombs, costing us billions per year to incarcerate the users, and resulting in policies like the abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws to punish crimes without any criminal conviction against a person?

Has the war on the pipe bomb black market resulted in people who should know better deciding to stretch the Constitution in ways that wind up affirming federal gun laws?

I guess it would be ok to have a home lab next door to your children's school or daycare center?

That's what we might have right now. I'd prefer a legal, regulated market to a black market. We're going to have one or the other.

 

[cracked butt]

Why? Is there a large black market for pipe bombs, costing us billions per year to incarcerate the users, and resulting in policies like the abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws to punish crimes without any criminal conviction against a person?

no, but why prosecute people who make and store home made explosive devices in their homes or garages? They aren't harming anyone. If a pipe bomb owner is blown up by one of his devices, he's only harming himself, right?

 

[publius]

I can see a couple of reasons why. If I blow up my garage, and it's only 20 feet or so from your house, you might just have something to say about that.

In my old neighborhood in Miami, many people still had wells. If I dumped contaminates from my bomb making chemicals in my lawn, you might drink them.

Basically, I think many zoning laws are fine. They protect property rights more than they infringe upon them. If that means you can't keep dangerous stuff and undertake dangerous activities in a residential area, well, that's kind of the idea.

 

[Yowza]

Perhaps anarchy would be preferable to some here..........

Here's some anarchy for you:

1. Selling intoxicants to minors - illegal
2. Public intoxication - illegal
3. Driving while intoxicated - illegal
4. Possession of a weapon while intoxicated - illegal
5. Commission of a crime while intoxicated - illegal

That pretty much covers it for drug penalties as far as I'm concerned.

What I often wonder is who does the average joe consider to be a worse criminal, the drug users or the drug dealers. For me, it's definitely the drug dealers and I'd love to see them all put out of business in one fell swoop. The drug addicts will work themselves out and we'll probably have fewer of them than we currently have alchoholics once the government propaganda really takes effect.

And we'd get the added benefit of less abuse of authority by certain government employees.

Rick

 

[cracked butt]

In my old neighborhood in Miami, many people still had wells. If I dumped contaminates from my bomb making chemicals in my lawn, you might drink them.

Bingo! You might be catching on. You wouldn't want people dumping harmful chemicals down the drain/well from making meth eitehr would you? Or is meth=drug=good=good chemicals and bomb=bad=bad chemicals?

 

[rock jock]

By all accounts, most meth labs are run by users who make the poison primarily for themselves and secondarily for profit, which is then used to buy more ingredients. I don't think you see people running meth labs driving Ferraris and buying $1MM homes. They are rotting their bodies and minds and causing incredible problems for society.

Legalization will not solve this problem one iota. It will always be cheap to make and it will always be addictive.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

Emily Litella would have commented that we should be encouraging our youngsters to use math, and that this could hardly be categorized as an epidemic.


Never mind.

Wonder how many people are old enough to know what the heck I am talking about.

 

[rock jock]

Wonder how many people are old enough to know what the heck I am talking about.

SNL '78

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Jeff:

Perhaps anarchy would be preferable to some here..........

I think the argument here is that those involved who are taking these huge risks are doing so because the demand exists (and will continue to exist, regardless of the laws) and there's big profit in it (we can eliminate this through legalization and regulation through something like the FDA).

Let's assume I thought it'd be cool to manufacture meth for personal usage. The smart way to do it would be to:

1. Go to amazon.com and purchase books on meth manufacture from multiple sources to make sure the facts look right
2. Go to some place like Carolina Biological Supply to buy the chemistry equipment so I can do this right
3. Buy the precursors in reasonable amounts, from a supplier I trust.

The problem is that doing 1 and/or 2 will likely get me on a watch-list or some sort, or possibly serve as enough evidence for a warrant. 3 has been effectively outlawed, and trying to buy the chemical components for my product will get me busted unless I find some round-about way of getting the supplies which increases the cost and risk associated with my little venture.

Unless we remove the profit from it, people'll continue to take the risks to make more money than they can any other way.

Here's another way of looking at it. I've got 5 acres or so I'll be growing on. There's no way I'll consider growing tobacco (though I love a good cigar) because the cost-to-benefit ratio for doing so sucks for a small grower. I've never smoked pot, but the incentive to grow it is there -- this link suggests that outdoor growth produces a pound per plant (poking around on other boards suggests 2.5 per plant if grown hydroponically, btw) with a street price of $500-1000 per pound. Now, do the math and tell me what a half-acre greenhouse would yield, using automated hydroponics to keep it to a one-man show.

No, I don't plan on being a pot grower, but the numbers are shocking, and give some insight into why it's impossible to win the "drug war."

Anyone know how the profits of meth compare with pot? Unless we make it unprofitable to make it yourself (like growing your own tobacco for cigars), we're going to continue to see accidents due to law enforcement efforts and "accidents," plus the normal harms of prohibition.

Doesn't mean I like it. Just means that's the way it is.

 

[Yowza]

Legalization will not solve this problem one iota.

And yet the laws we have have worked so well...

Rick

 

[Jeff White]

Derek,
The only problem with your example is that most people who produce meth, produce it for their own consumption. Outside of what is produced in Mexican labs and distributed by outlaw motorcycle gangs (mostly in the Southwest), you could say that your average meth cook is white, poor and from a rural area. He makes the meth for his personal use and that of his friends and doesn't sell much of it. This makes traditional drug enforcement methods ineffective.

All I'm saying is that if you legalized drugs, you'd stil have to have laws about producing meth. The home-brewed methods are dangerous to society as a whole.

I'm not foolish enough to think that we'd ever eliminate home-brewed meth, but just like the end of prohibition and the relaxing of blue laws throughout the country cut the moonshine business down, legalization would cut the home-brewed meth business down. There isn't much profit in home-brewed meth, unless you count the high they are looking for as profit.

We pick and choose what problems we're willing to devote resources to fighting. There is something wrong, when I can look through the mail at work and see all kinds of funding available to pay for overtime and training to run stings on the local gas stations and convenience stores because they might sell a pack of cigarettes to a 17 year old, but there is little to nothing available to help us deal with meth, which is totally overwhelming the capability of the rural areas to deal with it.

Let's look at the cost of overtime and special training and equipment to deal with meth labs. Most departments are undermanned to start with, it's not the kind of job where you can just go home at the end of your shift if the work isn't done. If you don't get the training to clean up the labs then you (the taxpayer) are on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars to hire it done. Then there is the cost of the protective equipment necessary to do this safely.

Now lets add in the additional workload and cost to foster care and the other social services, you can't just leave small children at home to fend for themselves after you lock mom and dad up for using meth, or after dad has burned the house down cooking it. Add in hospital space, rehab, jail beds, additional prosecutors and public defenders.

We've strayed from the article that was the first post in this thread. According to the feds, there is no meth problem, underage tobacco use, people wearing seatbelts, driving drunk or smoking marijuana are much more serious issues.

I'm saying we need to get our priorities straight.

Jeff

 

[rock jock]

And yet the laws we have have worked so well...

This assumes that there is an easy solution to this problem. I have learned long ago, that despite pithy comments (and philosophies) to the contrary, there are rarely easy solutions to the hard problems in life.

If you have an easy solution, by all means "do declare."

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

If you have an easy solution, by all means "do declare."

How about the Federal Government actually living by the limits of the Constitution. It doesn't say in there that they have the authority to regulate what Americans consume, so they shouldn't attempt to regulate it. Think of all the money we'd save in taxes. Could lay off all those police and federal agents. How great that would be. No more constant push to eliminate the Fourth Amendment piece by piece. There's my solution.

 

[Yowza]

I just can't see anyone producing meth if they can buy it legally. How many different chemicals do you have to acquire to make meth? According to one recipe I looked up on the web (I'm probably on a list somewhere now) you need pseudoephedrine, coleman's fuel, red phosphorus (matches), iodine crystals, Muriatic Acid, acetone, denatured alchohol, and lye (aside from one-time equipment costs.)

Now how much does all that cost? Probably not too much, but I certainly can't see it being cheaper than just buying meth OTC which would probably cost little more than the pseudoephedrine in the first place. But now you're thinking "Oh, no people might actually use it if they can buy it!" Yeah, true but what do you think they're doing right now? They're making it, creating a dangerous situation for themselves and others nearby AND they're using it.

The bottom line is that if drugs had been legalized years ago (or if they had never been criminalized in the first place), the term "meth lab" would not even exist. If the local governments want the feds to do something about the problem, maybe they should look at some options besides just throwing money at it.

Rick

 

[Yowza]

This assumes that there is an easy solution to this problem.

It doesn't assume any such thing. I never said it would be easy, just that what we're doing now sure ain't working and I don't see why it would work any better just because the feds get involved.

Rick

 

[rock jock]

It doesn't say in there that they have the authority to regulate what Americans consume, so they shouldn't attempt to regulate it.

Yeah, but it also doesn't say that the states can't.

 

[publius]

Bingo! You might be catching on. You wouldn't want people dumping harmful chemicals down the drain/well from making meth eitehr would you?

cb,

I believe that a legal meth market would be easier to control than the current black market. I appreciate what rockjock and Jeff White are saying about how easy and cheap it is to make meth yourself, but I'd point out that it is easy and cheap to grow tomatoes, yet most people buy them.

I just don't think that some dude who might cut the product, who might include impurities in the process, who might rob you, and who has no license, and on whom you can't call the cops if he rips you off has any chance of competing with some dude whose location is known, who has insurance and a license, whose product is certified and properly packaged, and on whom you can sick cops and lawyers if there is a problem. This is especially true if fewer people are tolerant of the illegal labs (a likely result, I'd think) and if more law enforcement resources can be brought to bear against them, since they would likely be fewer in number.

Basically, black markets suck. You could pay less and hire some dude off the street to remodel your house, but you pay more and go to a licensed contractor. Why avoid the black market? Because being a criminal is a pain in the ass, and black markets suck.

Rock Jock, indeed states can regulate drugs under our Constitution. As you may have noticed, I often wonder whether our founders intended for such things as homegrown cannabis plants or machine guns to be among the "few and defined" powers of the federal government, or whether those things are among "the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State," and thus state government concerns, to the extent they are government concerns at all. I may have even asked you what you think, and if so, I apologize for the asking again, but do you have an opinion on what Mr. Madison would say about that?

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Deleted. Jeff and I agree, so why go over it again?

 

[centac]

Legal meth? Heck, look at the problems rooted in legal alcohol. Just legalizing any drug doesnt negate its ill effects.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Just legalizing any drug doesnt negate its ill effects.

Right, but it eliminated the problems associated with prohibition. The first you can't eliminate, as it's human nature. The second we can all do without, thankyouverymuch.