I've been ridiculously busy

I've been too busy for my own good. I am supposed to be tracking my blood sugars, by the hour, for the endocrinologist to take a look at Wed. I was kind of crappy about doing so - we went out of town friday night. By saturday I just felt awful. After a couple of hours of puking, I finally tested , and my blood sugar was 489. ( You are supposed to have it between 70-120). Apparently my pump quit working again. Felt dizzy, stoned, and absolutely moronic all day sat. Felt terrible when I screamed at my daughter and zee. Trying really hard to repair my relationship.

Anyway, I finally fixed it, somewhat, this morning. I have the worst diarrhea known to man, and I honestly just want to go to bed.

BUT I had to finish my stupid paper for school. Here it is. A topic that has been kind of engrossing me for a few weeks. My stupid ex-brother in law was busted for distribution, after I had warned him ( I also told him he could live in my spare bedroom for a few weeks if he wanted to dry out - he said no).

My paper:


The Real Source of Methamphetamines

In my sophomore year of high school, the cheerleading team captain was arrested for methamphetamine possession and distribution. At the time, meth was still a relatively new phenomenon. For the most part, meth was still considered to be the drug of bikers and truckers.
The small town I lived in was rocked by the scandal. Who would believe that such an exemplary student would be the source of such gossip? In a town of only 10,000, the idea that a daughter from a seemingly nice family would be involved with such activities was astonishing.
However, as years passed, and the new wave of meth addiction caught on, more and more of my friends and family have succumbed to the drug. The overall increase in methamphetamine abuse and addiction is incredibly disheartening. For example, in 1999 the Midwestern city of Des Moines, Iowa, reported that 14% of their yearly arrests tested positive for meth. By 2002, the nearby Nebraska U.S. attorney’s office found that 80% of their drug cases involved methamphetamines. (Milne, ¶ 4) “According to drug experts in Iowa, meth is now the number one drug of choice, and is the primary factor in domestic abuse cases.” ( Constantine, ¶ 20). According to the Law Enforcement Alliance of America, “Many AG’s feel that Meth is one of the worse threats facing their communities.” (Methamphetamines, ¶ 2).
One main reason that the drug is so difficult to control is that it can be manufactured, very inexpensively, from products purchased at your local pharmacy and hardware store. Recipes are available via the internet. In recent years, legislative efforts have restricted U.S. consumer’s purchases of pseudoephedrine products. One of the main ingredients necessary to make meth, pseudoephedrine is a large component of OTC (Over The Counter) decongestants and cold remedies, such as Actifed, Sudafed, and Tylenol Cold. Many pharmacies, groceries and convenient stores now limit purchases of these OTC drugs.

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For example, in Oregon, the Board of Pharmacists recently passed down a mandate for pharmacies in the state. Cold pills and decongestants will now be kept behind the counter, in order to deter potential shoplifting by people involved in meth production. Other Oregon retailers such as grocery and convenient stores can now only sell pseudoephedrine based products in other forms, such as the liquid or gel. Oregon believes that meth cooks have not identified the ways and means of manufacturing meth with these forms of OTC drugs, so the risk for future exposure has been eliminated. ( Rose, Cold Pills Staying Behind the Counter).
The legislative and regulatory intent of these actions is obvious. Our government is halting U.S. citizens’ ability to privately produce meth. These laws attempt to send the clear signal that an effort is being made to halt the meth epidemic. What is unfortunate is that these efforts do very little to substantially curb methamphetamine distribution in the U.S. The majority of U.S. methamphetamines are produced and distributed through large, foreign drug cartels. In fact, recent research suggests that almost 80% of U.S. methamphetamines are produced from drug cartels’ “Superlabs”. (Suo, Hidden Powerhouses). These cartels now purchase pseudoephedrine in large, pure quantities, usually from the overseas source, and do not waste time attempting to gather the chemical from cold remedies sold in your local pharmacy. (Suo, Lobbyists and Loopholes) U.S. Legislators and government officials need to make substantial efforts towards both limiting overseas production and the importation of meth by these drug trafficking channels. Restricting U.S. citizens’ ability to purchase OTC cold remedies is doing very little to halt the spread of meth production.
In the past, methamphetamine production and distribution was limited to outlaw biker gangs, mostly on the US west coast. Cities such as Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland seemed to be the hardest hit by meth addiction. (Constantine, Congressional Testimony by the DEA). However, the power base behind meth production and distribution has drastically changed since then. Most methamphetamines in the US are controlled by huge Mexican drug cartels. It is possible that the US war on drugs, largely initiated in the 80’s to fight Colombian and Mexican


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production and distribution of heroin, marijuana, and cocaine, left these cartels with the need for a cheaper drug to exploit. Unlike heroin, marijuana, and cocaine, methamphetamines are easily
produced from chemicals that are easier to obtain, and do not require any kind of agricultural activity.
Since 1986, experts have attempted to warn government agencies and pharmaceutical companies about the risk involved with pseudoephedrine-based products. Pharmaceutical lobbyists and bureaucrats have long engaged in a war on OTC cold remedies. Lobbyists insist that these OTC drugs are necessary for treating asthmatics and cold-sufferers, and putting these medications behind the counter, or requiring a prescription, will be injurious to the American public. Bureaucrats have long believed that the pseudoephedrine in these products is ripe for abuse. (Suo, Lobbyists and Loopholes).
Efforts by the government to restrict OTC cold remedies, and make the drugs available only by a prescription, have been readily blocked by powerful pharmaceutical companies. (Suo, Lobbyists and Loopholes) The effect was that legislative language almost always created some kind of loophole for exploitation. For example, a federal law created in 1989 created only oversight and regulation of importation of pure pseudoephedrine powder. Meth labs and drug cartels exploited this loophole, and then began to contract directly with companies who produced pills from pseudoephedrine. (Suo, Lobbyists and Loopholes)
The DEA’s efforts to curb this subsequent pseudoephedrine pill exploitation were grossly unenforced. Smaller pharmaceutical manufacturers in the US must register with the DEA in order to import large quantities of pure pseudoephedrine from overseas producers. These companies are required to satisfactorily document what the pseudoephedrine is being used for and who the product is being sold to. According to an article in The Oregonian newspaper, titled “Token Deterrent”, the DEA did not fully enforce the powers given them by Congress in important 1997 legislation. Instead of rigorously fact-checking large imports of pseudoephedrine, the DEA

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created a Boy Scout type honor system. The impact of this less than diligent effort by the DEA was rampant abuse. Several documents gathered by the journalists behind The Oregonian’s article under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) discovered the results of the DEA’s lack of scrutiny. In one case in particular, a semiretired mortgage broker named Thomas Narog created
a Ft. Lauderdale based-company, with DEA approval. “While Narog had no background in pharmaceuticals, he also had no criminal record, and neither did the man he claimed as his sole customer. The inspector handed Narog some brochures that warned pseudoephedrine can be used to make methamphetamine, then told him to report any suspicious orders to the DEA.”. Later, after the DEA discovered tablets, created by Narog’s company, in large meth labs, they discovered that Narog had been supplying millions of his pseudoephedrine tablets to the meth lab industry. (Suo, Token deterrent).
Now, the government has achieved control, by restricting consumer’s purchases of pseudoephedrine products, through ample legislation. Other substantive laws have been created to give the DEA the power to thoroughly investigate larger pseudoephedrine purchases. The DEA seems unwilling or unable to pursue their authority, and transactions of huge amounts of pseudoephedrine tablets are consistently taking place within U.S. borders.
The worst error seems to be the government’s disinclination to stop methamphetamine production and distribution at the source. Nearly every government factsheet, newspaper article and public interest group document available online clearly mention the ease involved with methamphetamine production. The government documents in particular stress their legislative efforts to curb U.S. production of meth. However, most also admit, as you read further into their documentation, that the majority of U.S. methamphetamines are supplied and created by foreign drug cartels, namely the Mexi-Cali drug cartels. The following description of the current state of US methamphetamine production was obtained from The White House’s Fact Sheet on Methamphetamines. “Methamphetamine trafficking and abuse have changed in the United States during the past 10 years. Mexican drug trafficking organizations have become the
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dominant manufacturing and distribution group in cities in the Midwest and the West. Methamphetamine production and abuse were previously controlled by independent laboratory operators, such as outlaw motorcycle gangs, which continue to operate but to a smaller extent. The Mexican criminal organizations are able to manufacture in excess of 10 pounds of
methamphetamine in a 24-hour period, producing high-purity, low-cost methamphetamine.” (Lloyd, Methamphetamines Fact Sheet).
In 1996, a DEA Administrator participated in Congressional testimony about the current state of the drug war in the U.S. According to his testimony, “The majority of the methamphetamine which is available in the United States is produced by traffickers from Mexico who control every aspect of the methamphetamine business. Meth seizures along the U.S.-Mexican border rose from 6.5 kilograms in 1992 to 665 kilograms in 1995. In the first six months of 1996, 516 kilograms of methamphetamine have been seized along the border.” (Constantine, Congressional Testimony by the DEA)
Clearly the government’s efforts to restrict purchases of Sudafed, Actifed and the like are doing very little to curb methamphetamine production and abuse. In effect, these legislative efforts have not halted the meth trade, and have largely served as PR machines for the government, which has attempted to seem vigilant about the meth epidemic.
In a March 7, 2005 letter to the United States Congress, the Law Enforcement Alliance of America clearly identified the incredibly weak efforts that have been made to adequately help dissolve the American meth epidemic. “On behalf of the more than 75,000 Members and Supporters of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) I am writing to urge you to provide law enforcement organizations with the tools that are badly needed to combat the growing problem of methamphetamine (“Meth”) drug abuse. Current legislative proposals, such as the “Combat Meth Act of 2005” (S. 103 and H.R. 314) include several tools that support law enforcement efforts aimed at small-scale, personal production in home Meth labs. Unfortunately,
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these bills also would block consumer access to common cold and allergy medications containing small amounts of precursor chemicals. These proposals also fail to adequately address the single most significant source of methamphetamine in the United States, namely, large scale manufacturing, smuggling and distribution by organized drug cartels.” (Fotis, Open Letter to the U.S. Congress)
Plenty of historical documentation exists that proves that the U.S. War on Drugs, especially against the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, has been ineffective. If strategically attacking the primary source of methamphetamines is not an option, it seems a shame that the government has fixated on a product that is useful for American consumers. Purchasing a few boxes of Sudafed at your local pharmacy is not the cause of the methamphetamine epidemic. The distribution of methamphetamines in the U.S. is largely attributable to the Mexi-Cali drug cartels that have yet to be successfully thwarted in their infiltration of our communities. Fighting the drug war requires substantive efforts on behalf of the government and society. If we are unable to support local and federal law enforcement with the tools to fight these drug cartels in their contamination of our communities, we surely have lost our ability to fight crime on the home front.