The War on Drugs in... Walgreen's?

[klaatu]

www.ocala.com
April 30, 2006

In case you missed it, I recently visited the front lines in America's War on Drugs. Did I stealthily accompany undercover DEA operatives to Medellin to observe the world's best known cocaine cartel at work? Was I embedded with a U.S. Army unit in Afghanistan to survey that government's crackdown on poppy farmers, the force, according to a U.N. estimate, behind nearly 90 percent of the world's opium trade?

Nope. I went to Walgreen's.

One of my twin sons had an ear infection not long ago and I picked up his prescription. Stacked neatly behind the druggist's counter was row after row of Sudafed and the house knockoff, as well as other drugs containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, the key ingredient to making methamphetamine, the outlaw drug currently touted as the biggest scourge in a nation that loves to live better through chemistry. The pharmacist had even secured the Vick's nasal inhalers, which, online sources say, contain methamphetamine.

This was the first time I had noticed compliance with a state law passed last year to combat the nefarious meth trade. Just this month, a similar provision to move cold meds behind the counter took effect nationally as part of the recently renewed USA Patriot Act.

Now, don't get me wrong. The drug trade in certain quarters is violent and deadly and has ruined the lives of many of those who couldn't control their appetite for destruction.

But the government's drug war has always been reminiscent of Samuel Johnson's characterization of second marriages: the triumph of hope over experience.

The only effective progress we've made in this long, twilight struggle has come from the very costly and time-consuming tactic - at least for police, prosecutors, judges, jailers and the taxpayers who pay them - of locking up everybody carrying anything more than a joint. Now, we've had to effectively criminalize the common cold.

Yet a few important facts are worth remembering: meth is illegal; its use is spreading; and Marion County ranks in the top three counties in Florida for the number of meth labs found.

All that would be enough cause for concern. But a group here in Ocala, led by Sheriff Ed Dean and comprised of police, health officials and child welfare advocates, is zeroing in on a policy to deal with a more worrisome aspect of the attack on meth: rescuing children found inside the toxic mills where this crud is cooked.

Among that group is Special Agent Eddie Velez of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, a member of a special multi-agency anti-drug task force operating in Marion, Alachua, Levy and Gilchrist counties.

To understand the concern, Velez likened making meth to baking a cake: it's a few key ingredients with a pinch here and a dash there of the cook's personal favorites tossed in for fun.

Except this cake's recipe calls for, besides cold medicines, anhydrous ammonia, used to make fertilizer, and muriatic acid, a swimming pool cleaning agent. Meth cooks also use red phosphorous, sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, kerosene, drain cleaner, or paint thinner.

As sick as it seems, the knuckleheads who make this junk allow children in and around their labs.

The Web site for a group called Common Sense Drug Policy highlights a Dallas Morning News report from September that noted, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 10,000 meth labs had been cleaned up around the country within the previous year - with more than 3,000 children removed from them.

Drug agents in Marion County will encounter a child in a meth lab perhaps 15 percent of the time, Velez said. Not that frequent, but even that's too much.

When a cleanup crew moves in after a bust, they're wearing decontamination suits because of the chemical overload. Meanwhile, "these kids are in it and exposed to it," Velez observed, "you can collect their clothes, but now we have to figure out what to do with them." Often, they're taken out with open sores on their little bodies and respiratory ailments.

Dean says he wants child welfare experts on the scene to help treat these children and place them in appropriate settings.

Velez believes the cold-med lockdown works by forcing meth makers to work harder for their goods. By this time last year, his troops had busted half of the 30 or so labs they found in Marion County. So far this year, they've uncovered six.

The downside, albeit Velez says he hasn't seen it here yet, is that as the Sudafed market dries up, meth heads turn to more powerful doses imported from Mexico.

We've locked up plenty in the War on Drugs, including now the Sudafed. As ridiculous as that seems, though, some things are worse. You could be a kid trapped in one of these chemical compounds.


Klaatu

[Forthesevenlakes]

amazing, never has the problem of security vs. freedom been so easily resolved for swim! no, seriously, swim had no idea about the percentage of labs found with children in them (?) although swim wonders how accurate this statement really is. swim certainly does not condone the exposure of children to meth labs or precursor chemicals, any more than swim would condone attempting to roofie one's right hand in order to get lucky. HOWEVER the author taps into the hysteria of the Drug War (TM) in order to justify the locking away of another aspect of personal choice; biased with consumerism as it may be, its still one more freedom negated by the incessant apparatus of the american war on drugs. "yes, its a hassle to get cold medicine, but its worth it now that children aren't being locked in meth labs" is the basic message swim gets from this, and swim doesnt entirely buy it. anyone irresponsible enough to let a child into a meth lab in the first place probably wont be restrained by placing sudafed behind the counter; indeed, the connection probably wont be made on that end. or on anyone's end aside from the authors--does the author seriously believe that more restrictions is going to make meth or any other drug magically vanish like it was some crappy prop in a harry potter film? maybe the author would do better to face the reality of the situation; that different approaches than the the current ones of the war on drugs would be a better alternative, not only for meth users, but for the public as a whole, than simply placing more items out of reach. swim wishes he had a sudafed to pop after reading this article, reading it clogged his nostrils with annoyance.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Damn good point.

[Alfa]

Restriction of precursors always leads to other routes of synthesis. Sometimes even much cheaper routes, so that the ban makes it possible for users to get more drugs for the same money.
Demand is there and stays there. The current drug war tactics increase drug demand, instead of lowering them. Statistics back my claim up. As long as demand is there, supply must and will come trough. It is the law of kapitalism.

[Forthesevenlakes]

Originally Posted by Alfa

Restriction of precursors always leads to other routes of synthesis. Sometimes even much cheaper routes, so that the ban makes it possible for users to get more drugs for the same money.
Demand is there and stays there. The current drug war tactics increase drug demand, instead of lowering them. Statistics back my claim up. As long as demand is there, supply must and will come trough. It is the law of kapitalism.

so true, and it applies to any drug. one would think that the 'war on drugs' in any country would long be over if it were possible to eradicate drugs, but demand will always be there, and with it entrepeneurs willing to go to great lengths to make money. the author's point, while partially valid (swim wouldnt want to think of kids with open sores in meth labs) is completely misguided and naive in its argument. i second alfa on this one.

[sands of time]

Alfa makes a great point... If the demand is there, people will always fill the gap with the product in demand. Simply put, it's profitable. It doesn't matter where the junk is coming from, the supply will always reach it's target. Law enforcement can try all they want, but the demand in some parts of the states is way to strong right now.

[Shooting Starz]

Exactly, where there is a will there is a way. They can outlaw all the ingredients and still labs will produce. Thats why there is a black market.

[RealGanjaMan]

SWIM has noticed his local walgreens has been tightening security around DXM products. They actually added two camera's to the OTC med isle, and they both point directly at the DXM bottles. They also started carding me, which for one they never used to do, and two, I definatly don't look like a minor. SWIM wonders if maybe DXM products will be replaced in the near future?

Peace,
-RGM