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Cheap, potent and easy to make, crystal methamphetamine creeps into ohio
By David Frabotta
He lay on his back in a stranger's bed wondering if he was going to die. He hadn't slept or eaten in six days, and now he was throwing up water that his body desperately needed and was gagging on his own saliva. Occasionally he walked into the other room where his friends were smoking crystal methamphetamine and begged them to take him to the hospital. "I was awake, like a zombie. All my muscles ached, and my body was starting to shut down, but I couldn't sleep," says James, 18, of Bath Township. "I wasn't hungry, but my body was starving. You can't eat on meth because your stomach shrinks, and you just puke up anything you try to eat. "Every couple of hours I would get up and tell them that I was going to die, and they needed to take me to the hospital. But they just kept telling me I was still tweaking, and I was paranoid and would be all right. "A couple of hours later I told them that they didn't have to take me to the front door. They could drop me off a block away and I would walk. I really thought I was going to die. But they didn't care because they were still tweaking, and they kept smoking the stuff." James, who asked that his name be changed because of his drug use, dropped out of his fifth year of high school. He illustrates an increasingly diverse subculture using crystal methamphetamine. No longer isolated in the twenty-something age group on the West Coast, meth has permeated the Midwest, and it is being used by people as young as 14 and as old as 60, according to Kevin McDermott, group supervisor for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency's office in Cleveland. "We have seen increased use in high school," McDermott says. "It may or may not be a result of the increased availability." In 1997, 2.3 percent of high school seniors reported using meth annually, up from 1.3 percent in 1990, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which uses the results from self-reported surveys conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And Elaine Jones, a registered psychiatric and mental health nurse at Edwin Shaw Hospital for Rehabilitation in Akron, says increased availability of meth is a major reason for the increased use. "It moves in cycles, and right now it's in an active phase where kids can get it," Jones says. "I think people are making it here. I am told that the strongest stuff is coming from the Massillon area. And I am seeing that the kids are doing it because it is accessible and cheap. They have brothers or sisters or friends at the University of Akron or at Kent State who give them access to the drugs." Crystal meth is manufactured easily in small, clandestine labs. Recipes differ, but the drug is commonly produced by combining poisons such as car starter fluid, drain cleaner and paint remover with varying amounts of legal stimulants such as caffeine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine, which are found in over-the-counter diet pills and decongestants. The result is commonly off-white to yellow powder or chalky crystal that can be injected, snorted or smoked. Users experience a rush similar to the body's own adrenaline, producing varying degrees of euphoria, alertness, decreased appetite and fatigue and increased confidence, physical activity and respiration. The buzz can last from 12 to 24 hours, and similar to other forms of speed, prolonged use can result in vitamin deficiencies, malnutrition, anxiety, depression, paranoia and damage to the lungs, liver and kidneys. Pharmaceutical methamphetamine was given to soldiers in World War II to relieve fatigue and widely prescribed to women in the '60s to lose weight, but its current medical use is limited primarily to treat obesity. Meth has spread throughout America because regulations on the chemicals needed to make crystal methamphetamine are different in every state, and Mexico does not regulate pharmaceuticals at all. It is distributed easily via drug trails already blazed by cocaine traffickers. "One of the problems is that Mexico doesn't control any of the precursor chemicals," McDermott says. "And we've seen some of the big labs move from Mexico into California and Arizona. We've seen them move as far north as South Dakota, and the methods for distributing already have been set up from the cocaine trafficking." Although controlling crystal meth's precursors helps to discourage the large manufacturers, McDermott says it does little to detour the growing amount of small labs, which are difficult to monitor. It is the small, community labs that have made meth highly available and cheaper than similar drugs such as cocaine. "Between 1990 and 1998, the number of labs has increased by 10 times, mostly in rural areas," McDermott says. "We're seeing an increase in the labs producing one to three ounces at a time. The cookers (manufacturers) are using one, selling two and living off the profit until it is time to cook again." He says meth is rarely smuggled into the country as it was in the '70s and '80s. Its production has boomed domestically because it is cheap, easy to make and profitable. "You have to compare it to crack cocaine because it is domestically produced, cheap to make, and anyone can do it," McDermott says. "An initial investment of $50 yields about an ounce of meth, and you can sell that ounce for about $1,200." Psychiatric nurse Jones says her patients use meth for short periods of time because the drug is physically hard on the user, and the availability comes and goes in cycles. "It doesn't appear that people are using the drug for a long period of time," Jones says. "It could be because the supply dies." But when the supply dies, many users turn to other drugs as a substitute. Or they use meth, when available, as a substitute for other drug habits. "When the accessibility dries up, many users go on to something else," Jones says. "We call them the garbage user. When one drug is no longer available, they move on to another drug. If red rock opium is around, then I will see an increase in the use until the supply is gone." It was the availability of the drug that allowed James to slip into a cyclical habit of using crystal meth. "I started using a lot when I found a good hook-up," James says. "I started hanging out in Kent, where I think I was pretty close to the source. We could get it almost any time, and it was pretty good quality." James soon realized that meth wasn't just cheap and potent, it was also highly addictive. "Meth is definitely very addictive," he says. "You can't imagine how bad it is to crash off a meth buzz, and it's so much easier to just get high again than go through the entire coming- down process. That is why people stay up for a week getting high. Then you have to come down from a week's worth of meth, and then you're screwed. "One night we drove around and smoked meth until none of us was able to drive, and none of us could go home," he says. "We called a friend whose parents owned a hotel, and she got us a room for the night. The first thing we did was unscrew the light bulbs." Many smokers use light bulbs by first breaking off the metal base, then scraping out the white frosting on the inside. Meth burns at a relatively low temperature, so the powder is placed in the bulb and heated with a lighter until it burns. Clouds of smoke lift from the bulb, and it is inhaled. "I remember still having a light bulb in my hand at 11 a.m. It was one of the first nights I did a lot of meth," James says. "I remember looking in the mirror, and my eyes were super dilated. I was trying to breathe slowly. Yeah, right. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and I could see and feel the veins in my neck pulsating. "That morning we took one of the guys who was partying with us to his high school intramural basketball game. We were still high, of course, and he was a wreck. He was coughing up blood on the court, and he played so badly his teammates were yelling at him. But we were still laughing in the bleachers." Although people who monitor drug use have seen a steady increase in crystal meth, many say the trend is modest in the Midwest. Law enforcers are not underestimating meth's potential for widespread use as in the Western states, but for now, they are thankful that use in the Midwest is not as widespread. The Western Portage Drug Task Force, an area narcotics agency composed of officers from Kent, Kent State, Ravenna, Streetsboro, Brimfield and Aurora, arrested a Kent State student for possession of crystal meth in Apple Hall during an LSD crackdown in December. The student was not charged because of a plea bargain, according to a task force agent who asked not to be identified because he works undercover. He says meth is becoming an area problem. "It's here, brother," the agent says. "And you can buy it in Kent, and you can buy it on campus." But Dan Fitzpatrick, the project director for the group, says meth is not a high priority on his list. "This is an extremely dangerous drug, and we have seen an increase," says Fitzpatrick, who is also the deputy chief at the Kent State Police Department. "We do think there are a few labs in the area, but the drug is not a critical concern for us right now." DEA group supervisor McDermott says the Midwest has not been exposed to meth as much as other parts of the country. "It has definitely increased on a large scale west of the Mississippi River," McDermott says. "We haven't experienced near the problem the West has. Last year (1997) we made five busts, and this year we made seven (in the 24-county, northern Ohio area between Toledo and Youngstown). It's not a significant increase, but we fear it is coming." And Dennis Thombs, associate professor of health promotion and health education at Kent State, also says meth's usage is growing, but usage is not widespread in the area. "I think it is a growing problem in the Midwest, but it is not a major problem yet," Thombs says. "The concern is that it will become a substitute for crack cocaine because it is domestically made, and it doesn't take a lot of skill or sophisticated equipment." Although meth users are diverse in the West, Thombs says most users are Caucasian in the Midwest. "I gather that meth is basically used by poor, disenfranchised, white people," he says. "A lot of folks seem to be working class, and it is widely called the poor man's cocaine." Thombs says the crystal meth problem could grow old with the user because of cohort use, which occurs when users continue to associate with other users of similar ages. He refers to the U.S. Justice Department's 1997 Annual Report on Adult and Juvenile Arrestees, a volunteer study composed of arrested people. "This data set found that there is a cohort effect among aging cocaine users," Thombs said. "Meth is the same way. It is used by a group of folks outside the mainstream. It is an illegal drug subculture, and users tend to continue to associate with each other." James says it was easy to fall into a drug subculture when his friends were using with him. Subsequently, there are no outsiders in the group to consciously evaluate the destructive, cyclical lifestyle. "When I was using, the only people I was friends with were tweaking, too," James says. James removed himself from his drug-ridden house in Akron last November because he realized how the environment was corrupting him and his friends. "My roommates are totally screwed up, and I moved out because they are all tweaked out," he says. "They use every weekend, and they are starting to do some scandalous stuff." On the morning James moved out of his Akron house, he says he caught a frightening glimpse of what he must have looked like when he was strung out on meth. "I woke up at 10 a.m., and there were about a dozen people I had never seen before in my living room," he says. "My roommates had invited people who they had met at a rave over for an after-hours party. They were all strung out, a bunch of cracked-out-looking people sitting around grinding their teeth." James moved in with his grandparents because he was kicked out of his parents' house for stealing to feed his drug habit. His parents still don't know the extent of his addiction. "I just wrote my parents a long letter explaining how screwed up I was back then," he says. "I haven't mailed it yet. I'm still scared of what they might think of me." Despite James' struggle to get clean, he is still not sure if he is over the temptation of crystal meth - a testament to its potency and addictive nature. "When I was getting clean, I thought I would fiend for meth when I was around it," he says. "Luckily I didn't. I don't think I will ever try it again. I hope not, but I can't really be sure." The Aftermath James doesn't run with the same crowd anymore. He still lives with his grandparents in Bath and has a new job at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. He is registered to take the test to earn his general education degree so he can begin college. He never sought formal treatment for his problem, and he admits he still uses the drug on special occasions. |
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