Monday

THE NEW METH RECIPE - THREE STEPS

This is a new formula for methamphetamine: Two-liter bottle of soda, a few powders, cold hands and some harmful chemicals. Shake the bottle and produces the volatile reaction products, one of the world is the addictive substance.

Only a few years ago, which requires sophisticated meth lab - with dirty containers red phosphorus over an open fire, flammable liquid cans, and hundreds of pills. The process has the stench, sometimes causing explosions, and it was so hard to hide that the vendors often "cooking" their medicines in the rural areas.

But now drug users, their own meth use in small doses, faster, cheaper and much simpler method to substances that can be carried in your backpack, and mixed on the run. "Shake-and-bake approach have become popular because it is relatively small amounts of pseudoephedrine pills drops - an amount easily, even in the toughest anti-meth get laws that were adopted throughout the country to restrict some purchases of intense cold medicines needs.

"Someone somewhere said," Wait, it takes much less of pseudoephedrine, and I can fly under the radar, "said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and dangerous drug control.

Associated Press review of the laboratories detected and found interviews with state and federal law enforcement authorities that the new technique quickly spread nation Rock and contributes to a sharp increase in the number of meth arrests after years of decline.

The new formula eliminates the clutter of the typical meth labs, and can in the backseat of a car or Bad address in makeshift stalls drug factory. Some even junkies Drug Administration.

Tablets are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then sharply to the soda bottle. The flame is not required.

The new formula batch meth is much smaller but just as dangerous as the old system, which sometimes creates a strong explosions touched off intense fighting and the drug delivery components that need to be treated as toxic waste.

"If there is no oxygen in the bottle, tends to a huge fireball," said Sgt. Jason Clark Department Missouri State Highway Patrol on Drugs and Crime Control. "You're not rocket scientists here. If you can not get any luck, have a devastating response."

A small mistake, unscrew a cap too quickly can cause a great explosion and the police in Alabama, Oklahoma and other states, dozens of lightning-related this year - some of them fatal - for the manufacture of methamphetamine.

"Every recipe meth is dangerous, but in this one, if you shake it just right, you can create too much pressure, pop and packaging," said Woodward.

When the fire broke out in previous labs, "it was usually the focus in the back room or garage, and people just running, but when these things pop, you will burn more extreme, since they are held. There are several fires and other burns, because it close to it on the couch or driving on the road. "

The chemical reaction is left, the crystalline powder is that users will be injected smoke, odor or. Often discarded bottle, which is now a toxic white and brown mud. Dozens of reports describing toxic bottles scattered along the highways and roads in rural areas in the countries with the biggest meth problems.

Do-it-yourself process produces only what meth make several hits, with which users type their own benefit rather than buying mass produced by an experimental drug dealer.

"It simplifies the process so that everyone do their own drugs," said Kevin Williams, Marion County Sheriff, Ala., about 80 miles west of Birmingham. "This may be the next neighbor. This may be one of your family members living in the basement."

A typical meth lab typically take several days, full-size dose of meth, which generate a source of heat and dozens of them, would probably require hundreds of boxes of cold pills.

But because the new method uses far less of pseudoephedrine, a small-time users can use the drug despite a federal law that bars consumers from buying more than 9 grams - about 300 pills - per month.

Federal government and many states adopted restrictions on pseudoephedrine in 2005, and the number of animals bust drastically reduced.

The total number of illegal meth lab incidents reported Drug Administration declined from almost 17,400 in 2003 to only 7347 in 2006.

But the number of defaults began to rise again, and some authorities have to shake the guilt-and-bake method for restoring the activity of Meth

AP review found 14 states that:

- At least 10 states reported an increase in meth lab seizures, or meth-related arrests with 2007 to 2008.

- Mississippi State Crime Lab meth incidents involving up to 457 31. May, from 122 in the same period last year - nearly 275 percent.

- Some states such as Oklahoma, doubled and Tennessee on pace this year arrested in the number of laboratories in 2008, too. Director of the Tennessee Meth Task Force, said the pace of the lab bust in the state, about 1,300 estimated in 2009, compared with 815 for all 2008th

Some states do not have a central database to monitor the sale of cold medicine, so meth cooks of state laws on the pill purchases in different cities and countries - a practice as "Smurf" known to them under the restrictions can handle the remaining sales.

Traci fruit, a special agent with the Kansas Office of Investigation, said law enforcement authorities are increasingly frustrated because there is no way to determine who buys what, "if we made the trade, commerce and draw their own records."

Historically, rural states like Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri were the hotbed of methamphetamine as a major component of the traditional method, anhydrous ammonia, was readily available from the tanks on the farms where they are used as fertilizer. But the new formula does not need anhydrous ammonia, are held with ammonium nitrate, a mixture of light when the cold pack that can be purchased at any pharmacy.

Data from the Ministry of Justice and DEA data suggest the method could be detected at an early stage and "Shake-and-bake" lab recently as far north as Indiana and as far east as West Virginia.

The AP interviewed also states: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

While many law enforcement procedures only learn so that the new laboratories, other countries rush to remove loopholes in the laws limiting the sale of meth ingredients.

Mississippi Senator Sid Albritton to identify said state law - the Oklahoma model - force the buyer and does business in order to keep a record of cold medicine sales. But the problem in Mississippi is a lack of technology purchases immediately logged into a central database.

"You must understand, do not go that drugs be an evolutionary process," said Albritton, a former investigator at the police and drug officer. "Find The day after we will pass a bill you for ways to circumvent it."
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