Generally I'm in favor of legalization of presently illegal drugs, but I draw the line on methamphetamine. You need a collection of nasty chemicals to cook up a batch, but without ephedrine or more commonly, pseudoephedrine, you ain't going nowhere.
While most of the chemicals are rather freely available, the only real source for pseudoephedrine in most states is over the counter cold medication. And the production and sale of these products is a huge business engaged in by very powerful interests.
Offshore production of pseudoephedrine.
Where does all this pseudoephedrine come from? Yep, you guessed it. According to the wiki:
The bulk of pseudoephedrine is produced by commercial pharmaceutical manufacturers in India and China, where economic and industrial conditions favor its mass production for export.
According to a
White House statement, progress has been made towards regulation of this offshore production. But I doubt that anything like the utmost has been done, as the report itself uses the usual wishy-washy terms signifying utter lack of achievement:
This is a complex effort, requiring cooperation of the countries that produce these precursor chemicals – principally India, China, and Germany – as well as chemical companies around the world, government regulating and law enforcement agencies and multilateral organizations.
Below the Squiggle of Doom I discuss the single most significant control factor for the stateside pseudoephedrine supply, that is, making pseudoephedrine products available on prescription only, and how that measure has been fought and, apparently, largely frustrated, by large corporate interests.
How meth works.
Pique the Geek 20090503. Drugs of Abuse: The Amphetamines (5/3/09) by Translator provides a wonderful discussion of how amphetamines work. If I may quote from Translator:
Amphetamines interact with the dopamine, the serotonin, and the norepinephrine systems. However, it is still not completely know what the exact mechanisms for these interactions are. It is known that amphetamines increase the concentration of dopamine in the space between the pre and postsynaptic neurons, thus triggering the brain's reward system, making it addictive. It is thought that amphetamine both directly causes dopamine to be released and also inhibits the reuptake of it, giving it a double whammy.
It is also known that for methamphetamine at least, and probably for the others, high concentrations are toxic to some of the dopamine producing neurons. Thus, long term, high dose amphetamine abuse can cause irreversible changes in the brain, making complete recovery unlikely although it is possible to quit the drug.
Attacking the pseudoephedrine choke-point.
Following Pulitzer-winning articles in the Oregonian in 2004, the state pharmacy authority in Oregon ratcheted up restrictions on the once-freely available pseudoephedrine products According to to
this 2009 Oregon State Police report:
(Rule 1) On October 15, 2004, the Oregon Board of Pharmacy adopted a rule requiring pseudoephedrine (PSE) products, other than certain liquids and gel caps, be kept behind the counter (BTC) and requiring picture ID for each sale. The rule went into effect on November 15, 2004.
(Rule 2) On April 6, 2005, the Board adopted a rule requiring PSE products be kept behind the pharmacy counter and requiring picture ID and logging for each sale. The rule went into effect on May 14, 2005.
(Rule 3) On April 5, 2006, the Board adopted a rule requiring a prescription for all PSE products. The rule went into effect on July 1, 2006.
Although the Oregon version of the Heritage Foundation, the Cascade Policy Institute declared these efforts would
inconvenience cold sufferers with "misguided government polices" and have no effect on meth abuse, these rules were dramatically successful. According to the 2009 OSP report:
● For the 7 months the first rule was in place (Nov 2004 to May 2005), there were a total of 166 meth lab incidents; an average of 24 per month. For the 7 equivalent months in the year prior to the first rule (Nov 2003 to May 2004), there were a total of 284 meth lab incidents; an average of 41 per month. This reflects a 41% reduction.
● For the 13 months the second rule was in place (June 2005 to June 2006), there were a total of 117 meth lab incidents; an average of 9 per month. For the 13
equivalent months prior to a BTC pseudoephedrine rule (June to Oct 2004 and Nov 2003 to June 2004), there were a total of 502 meth lab incidents; an average of 39 per month. This reflects a 77% reduction.
● For the 35 months the third rule has been in place (July 2006 to May 2009), there were a total of 59 meth lab incidents; an average of 1.7 per month. For the
35 equivalent months prior to a BTC pseudoephedrine rule (July to Oct 2004, plus Nov to Dec 2003 x 3, plus Jan to Oct 2004 x 2, plus Jan to May 2004), there were a total of 1,338 meth lab incidents; an average of 38 per month. This reflects a 96% reduction.
In addition, nearly all of the reported meth lab incidents in 2007, 2008, and 2009 were a dump site, partial or remnant (all but 8 of the 46): Oregon had only 3 operational meth lab incidents in 2007, 3 operational meth lab incidents in 2008, and 2 operational meth lab incidents (so far) in 2009. All have been attributed to smurfing PSE in neighboring states.
Replacements for ephedrine can't be used to make meth.
In response to the state regulation requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine productions, the manufacturers replaced the pseudoephedrine with ersatz products which permitted their cold medications to be sold over the counter again but the products could not be used to manufacture methamphetamine.
Corporate interests oppose reform and spread propaganda.
Now, according to a report published by Cascade Policy Institute, and written by Chris Stomberg and Arun Sharma "making cold medicine Rx DID NOT REDUCE METH USE" Cascade Policy Institute is a corporate shill operation. Stomberg (bio and Sharma bio) aren't law enforcement personnel, physicians, or lawyers. They aren't even Oregon residents. Instead they are both economists with the Bates White "economic consulting" outfit out of Washington DC.
In a nutshell, Stomberg and Sharma play around with some unconvincing statistics and claim that although meth lab incidents are off by 97% in Oregon, that decline would have happened anyway, based on similar, but not quite so dramatic declines in Washington and California. And they claim that methamphetamine related deaths have been unaffected by Oregon's measure -- I was not swayed by this argument. Ultimately Stomberg and Sharma recognize their numbers game to be unconvincing, for they conclude, in the money quote of the report:
Whatever the relative merits of Oregon’s law making pseudoephedrine Rx-only for the purpose of combating methamphetamine abuse, legitimate users of pseudoephedrine in Oregon are incurring additional costs as a result of this law. Among the direct costs of this law are the added time and expense involved in visiting a doctor to obtain a prescription for pseudoephedrine, as well as the generally higher systemic cost of the prescription drug itself. (emphasis added)
Nowhere do Stomberg and Sharma investigate why meth lab incidents are down. Nor do they make any actual inquiry into drug-enforcement, treatment, or medical conditions in the state of Oregon, or indeed, in any other state. And the costs to the pseudoephedrine drug manufactures is not offset by the decrease in property damage, hospital costs, and reduction in legal and social expenses associated with reduced methamphetamine use. This particular study is not a comprehensive inventory of costs and benefits, but simply a cherry-picked set of "facts"
The purpose of the paper appears to be to lend some sort of credence to the currently successful (except in Oregon and Mississippi) efforts to prevent the states from classifying pseudoephedrine as a prescription drug.
Reality favors the Oregon prescription approach.
The Deschutes County (Central Oregon) Meth Action Coalition gives a much more reliable set of facts.
It wasn't long ago that Oregon had hundreds of meth labs, but due to the diligence of law enforcement, and new laws concerning the availability of pseudoephedrine, most labs have vanished.
Pseudoephedrine is an important ingredient in the recipe for "cooking" meth. Found in Sudafed, Claritin and others, it was easily purchased, or stolen, from pharmacy shelves. In 2006, however, Oregon law put these cold remedies behind the counter and prescriptions are now required in order to purchase them. (Non-prescription versions of Sudafed and Claritin can be purchased over the counter, but they are new formulas not containing pseudoephedrine.)
And an
insightful article was published in the July 2008
Oregon State Bar, which
mirabile dictu included
actual interviews with prosecutors with substantial experience in methamphetamine cases:
Property crime — which the public associates with drug use — also is down, in Oregon and elsewhere.
In its December 2007 report, the meth task force said it had anticipated that elimination of local meth labs might result in more property crime. The report said that "This was based on the notion that, if addicts could no longer cook their own meth, they might have to steal or engage in identity theft to support their addiction."
But the report concluded that the opposite has occurred.
"The latest federal data indicates property crime rates are declining in the 12 states that enacted the strongest meth lab control laws at nearly twice the average of the other states," the report said. "Furthermore, Oregon, which took the strongest action by passing HB 2485, has experienced our nation’s largest reduction in property crime. The reason is not yet clear, but speculation is that meth lab cells also operated as property crime cells."
Stafford agrees that property crime in Oregon and across the country has been "dropping consistently" since the mid-’80s, with what he calls a "very significant" drop in Oregon in 2006-07, the first year Oregon’s legislation was in effect.
But he cautions that there are "lots of other variables" that could be at work, including a reduction in the number of young males, who are the demographic responsible for most property crime, and the effects of Measure 11, which set mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes.
And a chief public defender in the state's largest county agrees:
John Connors, director of the Metropolitan Public Defender’s Multnomah County office, agrees that the crime rate "certainly seems to be down in Multnomah County."
"Our case pick-up has steadily gone down the last few years," he says. "It could be a strong economy, a strong core downtown area in Portland and a special emphasis on and expertise in meth prosecutions. There have been task forces and tougher sentences available in the more serious cases. I also think some people’s awareness of how destructive meth is has had some impact, as has the availability of drug courts and treatment programs in the metropolitan area. People are finding out that they can be successful and stay clean."
You have to read the full article in the bar journal, but it makes the point that the local meth lab trade was almost eradicated, but the slack was picked by other sources, including Mexican meth cartels. Since then, pseudoephedrine imports to Mexico (its only real source of the precursor) have been cut back by the Mexican authorities.
Half-assed Congressional measures don't work.
Congress passed a half-assed measure a few years back, the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 CMEA), which set monthly limits on pseudoephedrine purchases and required presentation of ID by purchasers and record-keeping by retailers.
This however was easily overcome by the recruitment of straw buyers to make purchases of pseudoephedrine products, a practice which came to be known as "smurfing", which, as detailed in this 2009 DOJ report, became a well-organized method of furnishing supplies of pseudoephedrine to meth labs -- except as mentioned, in Oregon, and, more recently, in the state of Mississippi, which enacted an Oregon-type rule and a few months later, officials noticed a sharp drop in meth lab seizures and meth-related crime.
Federal preemption? (State's rights? Forget that!).
When Congress was enacting the largely toothless CMEA, the pseudoephredine industry pressed Congress hard to pre-empt all state regulation requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine -- in other words, to keep selling their product for runny noses in Boring, Drain, Philomath, Pendleton, Keno and Halfway, Oregon was going to have to put up with an avalanche of meth smurfing -- and no other state better even dream of doing the same thing as Oregon. This again is an example of (would be) federal preemption when it's necessary to serve the interests of corporations.
Conclusion
Now, there is much that must be done on meth in addition to the Oregon and Mississippi prescription regime. But it is an absolute lie to claim that these strategies have been ineffective. Instead, it is regarded by law enforcement as a critical tool. See this .PDF presentation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (4/21/11) which emphasizes the Oregon model as desirable for Tennessee.