Studies Help Police Follow Meth Culture

Many small-time methamphetamine users will be standing at their stoves Tuesday, cooking up their weekly stash of the drug.

A new report by Southern California narcotics experts finds that many addicts opt to cook a personal supply of the white crystalline stimulant -- a cheap and highly addictive substitute for cocaine -- on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, in the middle of the night.

Why those two days? Because by Monday, many addicts have used up their supply. They wait until late at night to mix up a new batch because, the later the hour, the less chance they’ll get caught.

The report was one of two studies recently conducted by the Inland Narcotics Clearing House, a branch of the Office of National Drug Policy Control that is made up of a consortium of local and federal law enforcement agencies.

The findings provide a stark, often disturbing profile of methamphetamine users and suppliers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the region’s hotspot for methamphetamine manufacturing.

The studies also tracked how quickly people across Southern California are learning to manufacture the drug, and the way these “cooks” get around tough restrictions on the over-the-counter ingredients used to make meth. Riverside County sheriff’s sergeant and clearinghouse spokesman Rod Crisp said the studies “help our officers on the street understand the trends and what they’re up against.”

The first study, called the Hammer Report, provided an annual review of meth lab seizures during 2002. The second report was based on a survey of 200 admitted methamphetamine addicts at rehabilitation facilities throughout the two counties. A lack of information regarding the local meth problem, authorities say, prompted the survey.

Law enforcement officials say the methamphetamine trade has two distinct and vastly different sources: the stove-top cooks, who tend to be addicts scrounging to feed their own habit; and “super labs,” high-tech and well-funded clandestine manufacturers run by Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. The latter can produce millions in profits.

Stove-top cooks make meth to use, not sell. And though they only produce about 20% of the nation’s meth, they are the most abundant, said Will Glasby, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Local authorities say the surveys have given them a better idea of who these stove-top cooks are: middle-aged, blue-collar white males living in suburban areas.

Contrary to popular belief, most stove-top cooks do not learn to make meth by searching the Web or by reading a book. Nearly 60% of those surveyed said a friend or companion showed them how.

The study estimates that between 1999 and 2001, more than 250,000 people in Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange counties learned to cook methamphetamine -- also known as speed or crank. One of the study’s most startling revelations is how state and federal restrictions on the sale of methamphetamine’s ingredients, such as over-the-counter decongestants and a variety of industrial cleaning solutions, have spawned a new breed of junkie known as the “dirt baron.”

To overcome the challenge of getting what’s needed, the report says, some users have taken to combing isolated parts of the desert looking for leftovers dumped in the dirt by large-scale meth lab cooks.

Once such a location is discovered, dirt barons dig up the soil, which often contains toxic byproducts produced in the meth-making process. According to the report, they then “transport it home to extract any residual meth that may be left in the dirt.”

Nearly 65% of those surveyed said they know someone who has or have themselves gone to such extraordinary lengths to get high.

But the dirt barons, desperate for meth’s long-lasting high, are still better off than some, authorities say.

There are others who use their own urine, Crisp said. These “tinkle tweakers,” as police call them, store their urine in bottles so they can reprocess it to extract methamphetamine.

But stove-top lab seizures account for the majority of the nation’s meth busts. Close to 95% of the country’s more than 7,000 lab seizures last year were these mom-and-pop operations, Glasby said.

“You have a huge number of these small labs, [but] they’re not producing large quantities,” he said, adding that most stove-top labs produce less than 10% of what a super lab turns out. “They’re not doing it to get rich. They’re doing it to get high.”

Unlike the stove-top cook, super labs crank out large quantities of meth and distribute it across the country.

Southern California’s Inland Empire has more super labs than most places, authorities say. Nearly 400 methamphetamine labs were uncovered in the region last year, according to the Hammer Report. Twenty-two were large-scale labs capable of manufacturing more than 17 tons of crystal meth a year with a street value of $160 million.

This is probably just a fraction of the labs in operation. Authorities say that for every lab they find, there could be five more they don’t detect.

Super lab cooks, authorities say, can make 10 pounds of methamphetamine or more a night, a year’s supply for a stove-top cook.

Many sophisticated labs, says the Hammer Report, are located along freeways and railways that link Inland regions to the rest of the country. That way, it says, the finished product can be shipped out easily and quickly.

Most of the methamphetamine seized around the country comes from this area, said Jose Martinez, a spokesman in the DEA’s Los Angeles division.

“It’s got the dubious honor of supplying methamphetamine to the rest of the country,” he said.