Laws not slowing meth's rise

By Ron Jenkins

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ For over a decade, Oklahoma lawmakers have tried to fight meth manufacturing, only to see a surge in makeshift labs jam the radar of law enforcement and fill up prisons.

Many of the laws passed have tried to limit products used to make methamphetamine. Others targeted users, manufacturers and distributors.

Still, the problem has mushroomed, with 1,254 labs seized in 2002 compared with none a decade earlier.

Now policy makers and even veteran law enforcement officials are beginning to realize, "we can't arrest our way out of this problem," said Scott Rowland, general counsel of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics.

New strategies stressing treatment are needed because most meth is made to feed an addiction, not make a profit, he said.

Many involved in making the drug, using recipes on the Internet, are supplying the habits of themselves and a few friends.

One possible law Rowland is researching _ "at the risk of sounding like a Nazi" _ would set up a civil commitment system for addicts and small-time meth makers.

The idea is to isolate users for weeks or months prior to trial so they can be detoxified.

The way it is now, Rowland said, "it's 100 percent certain" that meth makers who are addicts will go back to cooking the drug when they get out on bail.

There is legislative support for expanding drug courts, community corrections and other programs that offer treatment. But some lawmakers oppose allowing meth manufacturers of any stripe to avoid jail time.

Alarmed by the rising prison population of drug addicts, Sen. Dick Wilkerson, D-Atwood, has advocated more treatment programs for years.

Like alcoholism, "no one ever said there is a cure," said the one-time Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation official and undercover narcotics officer.

"But if treatment works to any measurable percentage, let's say 50 percent _ and I think that is conservative _ that would mean 50 percent of these people you would never have to handle again," Wilkerson said.

Without treatment, he said, perhaps 80 percent will return to meth use, "so you're going to save substantial dollars."

Wilkerson and Sen. Sam Helton, D-Lawton, have authored most of the legislation aimed at giving law enforcement new tools to fight meth.

"When I first got elected, the main thing was to put them in jail," said Helton, a former Lawton police officer. "Now I'm beginning to see that when we lock them up and they've still got a problem, they'll go back to doing the same thing and it's costing society."

The state's revenue shortfall the past two years has stymied efforts to expand drug courts and other programs offering treatment.

A law enacted this year licenses wholesalers, manufacturers and distributors of pseudoephedrine, a common ingredient in cold medicines and key ingredient in meth making. It will help officers track where pseudoephedrine winds up for sale, Rowland said.

It also gives prosecutors the authority to bring civil lawsuits against any company or individual that "we can show is negligently or recklessly selling this stuff," he said.

Some convenience stores have sold products containing only pseudoephedrine by the case, but officers have had a difficult time\ catching them, he said.

Oklahoma scored a success in the meth war back in 1990 when it became the first state to ban the sale without a license of precursor chemicals then used in meth making.

"We had kind of a lab epidemic, with 91 labs seized in 1989. We thought the sky was falling," Rowland said. "We didn't know what was coming."

After the 1990 law, lab seizures eventually dropped to zero, but meth makers switched to using ephedrine, a common drug in over-the-counter medications.

Lawmakers countered by making ephedrine a prescription drug and manufacturers began using pseudoephedrine, which is found in everything from Tylenol cold medicine to Sudafed.

Other laws stiffened penalties for stealing anhydrous ammonia, another component of meth-making, and made possessing over 24 grams of certain products presumptive evidence of intent to manufacturer meth.

Still another law passed last year made it a felony for anyone to sell pseudoephedrine if they had reason to know it was going to be used to make meth.

While the debate about treatment versus prison goes on, Wilkerson believes authorities should continue making arrests and prosecuting meth makers and addicts.

"That's the only way we can identify these people," he said.