One puff off a pipe you can stay high for a day Most addictive illegal drug in America

Key ingredients found in most popular cold medicines o Cold medicine industry 3 billion dollar money maker o Companyies dont want restrictions on medicine Epedemic has swept across America Began in Oregon - one place hit hardest by epidemic o trailer parks one place to crash after meth use 2006 congress mandated Sudafed be sold behind counter and most states limited to 3 boxes a person New technique to cook meth called shake and bake o Can be done with easily accessible chemicals/materials o Can explode containers and cause horrible damages o Mixing strong acids and bases/ drain cleaner/ engine starters 2005 more than half inmates in Portland Oregon jail were meth users Changes can be seen in meth users that has distinct deteriorating effect on their physical appearance o Teeth rotting from smoking meth o People pick at skin leaving scars and open wounds o Makes people a shell of what they once were, takes away their life Portland newspaper, The Oregonian started focusing on impacts of meth o Effects not olny user o Leading cause of property crime and why children are put in foster homes o Its hard to be a part of Oregon and not experience the impacts of meth on ordinary people 2002 the Oregonian wanted to find out how and why the meth epidemic got so out of control o Reporter steve suo assigned to investigation o Gathered information around meth use and make charts o 1992 only Oregon had enough addicts to be shaded black o 1997 number of addicts west of mississipi had risen dramaticall o 2003 meth started to reach the east coast Meth addicts commit 85 % of property crime in Oregon Garage sale part of meth crime wave took items from addicts he paid with meth Ultra stimulant one puff off a pipe you can stay high for a day Children and spouses are hardest hit by meth epidemic 2005 - fifty percent of children in foster care in Oregon were there because of meth o Many were seen by pediatritian Carol Chervenak, M.D. (child abuse examiner) o One nine year olds dad taught her how to cook it Described detail of process, how woozy she felt during meth cook Her dad made her stick her finger in this stuff at the end and made me taste it Domestic violence between parents, dad pistol whipping mom in driveway Pornography playing on tv all day Sexual activity between herself and adults in home while they were high on meth o Kids are thought of by meth orphans (parents stolen by drug)

Oregon began most innovative treatment program, but most wonder if treatment works for meth addicts In every state over time the number of people entering rehab had were similar Same correlation is found in arrest and emergency room visits Over the year there have been huge simultaneous spikes in meth use followed by huge fall offs Meth use changes your brain over time o Primarily affects dopamine levels in brain Dopamine is pleasure chemical released when people do things brain rewards o One orgasm equals two cheeseburgers o Meth use has extreme release of dopamine that does not occur in any other situation o Most meth users explain a euphoric experience unlike anything else, because of spike of dopamine levels o After a meth addict experiences meth it alters the brain to where they have an inability to experience pleasure They feel the only way to be happy is to take meth again Meth is suggested to be most addictive drug Purity of meth could explain the pattern of meth use and addiction over the years, because the purer the meth the easier it is to get addicted and when the purity decreases more people saught out help because the meth wasnt giving them the same pleasure as before, explaining the drop-offs of meth use o Perfect match to explain the severity of the epidemic over the years Purity explained by government intervention and drug traffickers 80s a new supercharged speed came on the market, demethelphetamine o Known as crystal meth o Like a high octane version of speed o Can be made from household products Only essential ingredient is ephedrine or sudoephedrine Found in most cold medicine Because the ingredients were so easy to get it sparked a lot of people cooking up meth in their own kitchens around the west o But kitchen cooks could only produce small amounts of meth Gene Haislip 1986 number three man at DEA (former head of chemical control, DEA) o Thought of controlling chemical components that go into drugs Used same strategy to rid of qualoods, which was successful Columbian cartels making queloods needed a chemical that was too complex to make themselves, they had to buy it legally So Haislip went around the world to factories making this chemical to convince them to control selling it, which halted the cartels making this drug o Meth made with few chemicals with legitamit uses o 1986 a bill introduced a bill for distributors of ephedrine and sudoephedrine to check identity of customers buying these chemicals and to make sales records available to DEA

Ran into trouble because pharmasuetical companies were making billions selling cold medicine over the counter Allan Rexinger (former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist was against such control over these chemicals Always concerned with what the DEA does because they are a bussines trying to make money Didnt want to ban ephedrine and sudoephedrine because they wanted cold medicine available to the population for sickness Bill had to be amended to exempt cold medicine Haislip decided he had no choice but to exempt the chemical from the bill when it was sold and manufactured as a pharmaceutical This made the production of meth still possible o Robert Pennal (Fresno Meth Task Force) o 1989 started hitting meth labs that were huge in Fresno, CA (rural area) Meth cooks used abandoned barns to cook meth because it took under 48 hours then they could vacate the cook site Pennal set up hidden cameras in prime spots used to cook meth These were called super labs Cooked from 10 to 100 pounds in a cycle 100 pound cook make 4 million dollars In the beginning of 1989 four out of five hits of meth in US were cooked in super labs in the central valley o Drug kingpins that turned meth into big business were the Emezkua brothers of mexico No supermarket in the world could sell the brothers the tons of ephedrine that their operation required They got the chemical from the same factories where the pharmaceutical companies got it for cold medicine 9 factories produce almost all of the worlds ephedrine and sudo ephedrine Meth amphetamine is very succeptible to supply side intervention because its not something that can be grown in away, it has to be made in a factory US government was so focused on Heroine and cocaine drug problems that they didnt look at who was buying the base chemicals for meth production from these 9 factories During one 18 month period of the early 1990s the emezkua brothers purchased 170 tons of ephedrine from the 9 factories and shipped it into the united states where it was turned into two billion hits of meth o Meth in America was suddenly cheap, plentiful, and very pure resulting in the first big spike of meth use in the US March of 1994 a plane in dallas texas landed (Lufthansa flight) o Customs agent found 120 cardboard chemical type containers on plane o Company of origin had been painted over o It was 3.4 metric tons of ephedrine destined for mexico city o This made the DEA realize just how much the ephedrine was being obtained for meth production

Soon California super labs started running out of ephedrine so the purity of meth began to plunge o This resulted in a downfall in meth use and addiction o When the purity falls fewer first time user become addicted and more addicts want to come clean, giving rehabilition a chance In early 1996 meth purity was lowest it had been in years Congress gave power to DEA to regulate ephedrine in cold medicine o Pharmaceutical companies agreed as long as they could keep Pseudoephedrine o But when it comes to meth production the two chemicals are the same o This resulted in super labs producing large quantities of pseudoephedrine pills o This led to a rise in meth purity in US once more, and the epidemic began to spread west to east, but had not spread past the missisipi yet This led to government being unaware of the severity of meth problem o Congress gave people a year to adjust to new chemical controls giving superlabs a chance to buy more chemicals o Eventually meth purity dropped once again until meth cooks began shipping large quantities of pills in unlabeled bottles to cook meth These came from Canada, the DEA worked with Canadian government to shut down this problem After this Smurfing began to be seen a lot, this is people going from pharmacy to pharmacy buying as many pseudoephedrine pills they could and turning around to sell them to meth cooks o This was an act of desperation for super labs, and became the main source of the base chemical for kitchen meth cooks o To try to stop smurfing Oregon tried to get pharmacys to sell pseudoephedrine behind the counter and making customers register This was opposed by pharmaceutical companies worried about their business These companies were more concerned with profits than the health and welfare of the population DEA study in 2001 looking at Portland area convenience stores sales of cold medicine used for cooking meth o This study concluded that about 75 % of pseudoephedrine going into convienince store went into meth production 2004 oklahoma passed a law moving psuedoepedrine behind the counter o Oregon followed suit and some national chains took the same step voluntarily But by then Mexican drug cartels had found a better source of pseudoephedrine close to home o 2004 mexican pharmaceutical companies legally imported 224 tons of pseudoephedrine Twice as much as they were using to make cold medicine Drug cartels used extra 100 tons to cook meth This resulted in meth on US streets becoming as spike in meth purity again Mexican drug cartels then began using their traditional drug smuggling routes to bring meth to the eastern US First affected by small towns in southeast that were now looking at meth crime wave This resulted in meth being realized as being a problem

2006 congress passed the comeback meth act o Mandated that pseudoephedrine be put behind the counter nationwide and that buyers register at store counter o US then convinced foreign countries to limit importation of pseudoephedrine to jus the amount they needed to make cold medicine o 5 years later the positive impact of that action became clear Mexican government realized they had a huge problem and banned pseudoephedrine all together o This made the purity of meth coming into the US plunging dramatically 70 % of meth seized is the old biker method of making meth which is half as potent (de el methamphetamine) o Good news for people becoming addicted because the meth isnt as powerful Meth cooks found a way around chemical limitations by using smurfers to a new extent, buying cold medicine store to store and town to town o Then used shake and bake method to create extradorinally strong meth once again 30 years the US has gone through a cycle of new laws and new strategys by meth cooks to get around them In Oregon some that experience the worst of the epidemic found the cure by making pseudoephedrine a prescription drug o This is the best way to halt meth production o It used to be prescription drug before 1976 o This ended problem In 2004 before change in law sheriffs deputs uncovered 64 meth labs in moltenoma county Oregon, in 2010 after the change they found only 1 5 years ago 27 % of arrests were related to meth which is down to 4.6 % in 2010 Crime overall has dropped in Oregon With other states thinking of taking oregons approach to the problem Pharmacuetal companies began spending millions of dollars lobbying against this o They are against making this cold medicine a prescription drug and want an improved system of tracking purchases o Their fight on this legistlation is taking the angle of the cost for consumers having to seek out prescriptions for cold medicine Meth is like a whirlpool where you get caught in a current and you go round and round until you go under