Methamphetamine: Restriction of Precursor Chemicals Gets a Replay

The Oregon State Legislature and the Oregon board of Pharmacy have joined together to restrict the many precursor chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Their goals: Slash local meth production, and ease growing pressure on resources in the fields of law enforcement, treatment and prevention.
And it worked: The amount of meth on the streets went down.
This year, right? Try 1987.
The Legislature and the Board of Pharmacy effort 18 years ago helped cops and prosecutors almost totally eradicate the then-prevalent form of meth, called “p2p” for the recipe’s reliance on a chemical called phenyl-2-propanone. But when they attacked the chemicals they did, they ignored another recipe available today in many an illegal neighborhood drug market.
The primary strategy in Salem and Portland this year is the same: Limit the availability of the chemicals used to make the dominant form of meth.

The difference this time, they say, is that no heir-apparent recipe exists.

Now the DEA and the Department of Justice need to further restrict the off-shore importation of the precursor chemicals from Eastern Europe, China and India. A map of importation routes can be viewed here.

And restrict the importation of these precursors to Mexico, where over half of all American methamphetamine is imported.

In September 1987, a year after the Portland Police Bureau reconstituted its Drugs & Vice Division and discovered huge caches of meth in houses, cars, motel rooms and storage units, the Board of Pharmacy voted to add four meth-making chemicals to its list of controlled substances.
Two of the four, ephedrine and phenylacetic acid, were the largest precursor chemicals. The first widens air passages in the lungs and appears in bronchial medicines. The second is a common ingredient in perfume.
The board also agreed to review two chemicals in addition to the four and later added them to the list. The same month, a bill passed by the Legislature took effect, requiring buyers and sellers of 17 chemicals to report all such transactions to the Oregon State Police.
Meth production dropped. Cooks started driving north to Washington for chemicals, sometimes moving there and commuting to sell their product.
But lurking in the background was another recipe that had already hit Portland’s streets. None of the legislation, none of the rule changes had addressed it, and it flourished. The primary ingredient, pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, was available in cold tablets bottled and packaged by the thousands.
Still, then-U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., stood on the floor of the House of Representatives in June 1991 entreating his colleagues to target only ephedrine. Wyden, now a senator, did not respond to a request to discuss methamphetamine.

Politicans like Wyden should be embarassed that their lack of foresight has cost many citizens their lives and many millions of dollars in criminal and treatment costs.

However, today the problem is well understood and Oregon is again seeing improvement with precursor chemical restrictions.

Methamphetamine production and use decreases when precursor chemicals are restricted.

There is congressional work to be done on a bi-partsian basis to eliminate this drug’s manufacture, importation and use.

By 2004, the problem was much more clear — and growing. Portland police busted 53 meth labs in 2003. Last year, 116. Recipes were readily available online at pages like Totse.com and Neonjoint.com.
Meth’s evolving prominence in local law-enforcement dialogues coincided with a budget squeeze reducing the number of jail beds along with the number of deputy district attorneys assigned to drug cases, from 12 to seven.
“We’re just overwhelmed,” said Mark McDonnell, Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney. “We’re dying, or maybe drowning is the best word for it.”
Hoping to address such issues, Kulongoski formed his task force, and the Legislature and Board of Pharmacy again took up the issue. Pseudoephedrine moved behind pharmacy counters, accessible only with identification and, later, a signature. Pharmaceutical companies changed some of their cold-tablet recipes to exclude pseudoephedrine.
A meth congress in Portland last week attended by 23 elected officials, judges, lawyers, cops, health professionals and educators set priorities of immediate funding for jail beds and treatment. And two bills received public hearings in Salem on Thursday — a House bill stiffening punishments for meth cooks and a Senate bill expanding the definition of child abuse to include living with meth labs.

Again, as in 1987, methamphetamine production in Portland is down.