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METH / ADDICTION
Publication: Sun Sentinel
Date: 02-22-04

By Noaki Schwartz
Miami Bureau

chalk, crank, croak, crystal, glass, ice, quartz, speed, tina, tweak

Cheap High - quickened pulse, quicker breaths, wakefulness, low appetite, talkativeness, confidence, initiative, hyperactivity, euphoria

Extremely Addictive - Agitation, violence, convulsions, hallucination, psychosis, confusion, low bod temperature, brain damage, come, death

Beastly To Quick - Severe craving, deep depression, inertia, paranoia, protracted sleep

Produced with legal ingredients, methamphetamine can be sniffed, smoked, swallowed, inhaled or injected for a high that lasts hours. It is also extremely dangerous, and its spread in South Florida is causing alarm.
It has been called the most insidious drug of the new millennium — a substance worse than crack cocaine. With one hit, methamphetamine produces a feeling of euphoria and a sense of acuity that lasts hours longer than cocaine, making it popular among bleary-eyed truckers and overwhelmed college students. In the last decade meth, long known as the scourge of the West Coast, has been burning a trail across the nation — so much so that California recently lost its title as the nation’s speed capital when Missouri’s fields and farmhouses became ideal sites for 2,207 labs As law enforcement in the South targets meth, manufacturers dubbed “cookers” have started to spill into Florida. Here, buying meth’s over-the-counter ingredients in bulk won’t alert authorities as it would in other states that now scrutinize such purchases. State law enforcement officials first busted a meth lab in 1997, the same year they created a task force to deal with the growing problem in Central Florida. In the last few years, meth has begun to surface in South Florida, where at $2,000 a gram, it remains almost three times more expensive than cocaine. Not for long, warn some Miami-Dade and Broward county health experts and law enforcement officials who set up South Florida’s first meth task force in May2003.
Five months later, in October, authorities had their first major bust: 10 pounds of crystal meth in Coral Gables.
“The street value was between $1 and $5 million,” Coral Gables Police Sgt. Raul Pedro said of the bust. “My understanding is that as far as they know it’s the largest single seizure of the drug in this county’s history.”
By December, Gov. Jeb Bush approved six regional response teams to crack down on illegal labs, including one in Fort Lauderdale.
The societal costs of the drug are high. Each pound of meth generates 10 times its weight in toxic waste, substances U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials fear will seep into the state’s high water table. It can cost federal taxpayers up to $38,000 to clean a lab.
“And all the stuff to make it is legal,” said North Miami Beach Police Detective Mark Demarcus, who teaches officers about meth. “Once the guys down here that deal crack find out how easy it is to make meth, it’s probably going to blow crack right off the streets.”
While meth is generally made by transients who cook the drug in mobile homes, motel rooms or rented trucks in Central Florida, the drug has found a more affluent following in the southern part of the state, authorities say. Here, among the beautiful people, it’s nicknamed “Tina” by white-collar users in the gay party circuit who say it keeps their abs tight and gives them energy to dance all night and lose any inhibitions.
Studies -in California show meth users both gay and straight are likely to have more sex than other types of drug users in South Florida, meth has contributed to the recent spike in AIDS and syphilis rates, health officials say.
Marc Cohen, president of the United Foundation for AIDS in Miami, noticed the connection. In 2002, he helped organize the area’s first Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting. A year later, an estimated 200 addicts attend daily meetings in Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, and plans are under way to start meetings in Palm Beach County. Almost all attendees are gay men, and more than half are HIV positive or have syphilis, he said.
The drug is also starting to surface in other parts of the community.
“One woman was in medical school and using it to stay up and study,” said Cohen, who is scrambling to organize more meetings. “The fact that I just got a call about a 15-year old girl is significant. That kid is doing it with other kids, and where there’s smoke...”

‘POOR MAN’S COCAINE’
Meth is called a “poor man’s cocaine” because it produces a similar but cheaper high. Drug makers can whip up a hatch of meth in a day with products available in a grocery store, using one of dozens of recipes on the Internet.
Cookers extract ephedrine from cold medicine and by changing one oxygen molecule, create speed. But all manner of toxic chemicals from paint thinner to liquid fertilizer are used to make and clean the drug.
Methamphetamine was first developed in l9l9 by a pharmacologist in Japan, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Justice. During World War II, Japanese kamikaze pilots on suicide missions and Nazi troops to work long hours with little food or rest.
The drug, which can be smoked, swallowed and injected, became available in the U.S. around the same time. By the 1970s, when legislation restricted the production of the drug, motorcycle gangs began illegally trafficking what was then nicknamed “crank” because they carried it in their crankcase. Meth eventually resurfaced and by the 1990s had become a nationwide epidemic.
Florida law enforcement found the state’s first lab in 1997— the same year fashion mogul Gianni Versace was murdered in Miami Beach by a meth user, according to a book by journalist Maureen Orth. By 2001, Florida law enforcement dismantled 28 labs, a figure that mushroomed to 229 labs in fiscal 2003. In the first quarter of fiscal 2004, they busted 88 labs, many in Polk County and Florida’s Panhandle.
These days a dozen officers with the Central Florida Methamphetamine Task Force in Tampa work full time arresting meth addicts nicknamed “chicken heads,” and dismantling labs. With practice, they have come to recognize the signs: emptied foil sleeves of Actifed or Sudafed, containers of liquid fertilizer and beakers that reek of chemicals so strong, they have been compared to ether or cat urine. Sometimes the presence of drug labs is even more obvious — one in six labs blows up, say experts
Cocaine traffickers may be helping to keep the drug at bay in South Florida by threatening meth dealers, say federal officials. Omar Aleman, a former DEA official said Colombian cocaine cartels keep their prices much lower than meth, which is being made in bulk in Mexico.
Still, the lack of labs hasn’t stopped the drug’s growing popularity in South Florida.
The Broward County Commission on Substance Abuse became so concerned about this emerging drug epidemic, and its correlation with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, that it organized a community forum in Fort Lauderdale in November.
Florida has yet to experience the homicide, domestic violence and child abuse cases related to the drug that have overwhelmed other states, according to recent congressional hearings. But health experts at the meeting blamed the drug for the rapid climb in 1 and syphilis rates.
Part of meth’s early allure is that it gives users heightened sex drive, decreased appetite and increased attention.
“Frequently it’s used by people with more mundane jobs,” said Jim Hall, with the Up Front Drug Information Center in Miami. “Truck drivers have been noted to use it. I recall interviewing a nurse who was called ‘miss personality’ in the nursing home.”
As blissful as the drug makes users feel, the downward spiral is swift and excruciating, say recovering addicts. After a weekend binge, feelings of extreme depression prompt some users to call the period “suicide Tuesdays.” In the first six months of 2003, meth abuse killed about 40 people in Florida, according to DEA officials.
While addicts using other drugs can manage for decades before hitting bottom, those on
meth can lose control of their lives in as little as five years. In that time, hollow-eyed addicts who don’t eat can lose their hair and teeth and develop open sores all over their face, say health experts. Long-term use results in aggressive tendencies, paranoia and obsessive behavior, such as cleaning a single drawer for hours.
The relapse rate is 94 percent, according to a recent University of California at Los Angeles study. There is no methadone-like bridge to sobriety for crystal addicts, and because its use is associated with heightened sexuality, one of the greatest triggers to relapse is sex, say local health experts.
“It’s like you’re in love with someone you’re obsessed with and you can’t get away from the obsession,” said one former addict who did not want to give his name.

‘FEAR AND DENIAL’
Cohen, with United Foundation for AIDS, said for some gay men the addiction is especially powerful. For those who have struggled with issues’ of sexual identity and feelings of insecurity, escaping through meth is seductive, he said. The drug washes away those gnawing feelings and provides relief for people ostracized by family and friends because they are gay or HIV positive, Cohen said.
“There’s a lot of pain within the community,” he said. “They are so afraid of letting others know, they may turn to drugs to deal with theft fear and denial. Crystal becomes a very strong veneer for someone facing depression.”
A recovering addict named Mark, who would not give his last name, was introduced to the drug by friends and quickly went from snorting meth to “slamming” or injecting it everyday at about $60 for a quarter gram.
“I started using it around the; house because I could get things done,” he said. “I felt like for the first time in my life, my brain was turned on.”
His longest binge lasted eight sleepless days, and by the end he was painting Gatorade bottle caps. Mark finally hit bottom when he had what he calls a “psychotic episode” during an argument with his partner. By the time the police showed up, he was wielding a butcher knife.
For months Mark has been going to Crystal Meth Anonymous meetings and struggling to stay off the drug.
When his fight against meth gets tough, he pulls out a shoebox of about 150I bottle caps he covered with high gloss enamel when he was using. He also replays a mental tape of his worst moments when meth made him paranoid and psychotic.
“I try to play the tape through to when I’m sitting there peeking out of my windows,” he said, “or being tied to a gurney being rolled out with all my neighbors watching me.”