CBRNeWORLD Jeffrey Bigongiari on the ongoing fight against Methamphetamine and the challenges it poses to CBRN responders ICE ICE BABY! Hempstead County, Arkansas, 2011 The Drive-Thru… It was shortly before midnight on 17 October 2011, when the severely wounded man was dropped off at Medical Park Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. Although his charge’s arm had been nearly severed and his body was riddled with shrapnel, the driver did not stick around. When examined, the wounded man said he had been injured by an exploding car battery. He then gave conflicting accounts as to where the explosion had taken place. Meanwhile, those who had come into contact with the man began to notice burning sensations on their eyes and skin. As more began to feel the effects of exposure, the patient finally confessed to what had really happened to him. He had blown himself up in a clandestine laboratory while attempting to synthesize methamphetamine… One need only look as far as rocker Eddie van Halen or Fergie from the band Black Eyed Peas to be confronted with the tragedy and horror of methamphetamine addiction. Regardless, in the United States the narcotic is often discounted. More often than not it is associated with America’s white and rural poor. While hardly the “new black”, redneck cocaine steadily spread further and further from its roots as a motorcycle gang-produced pep pill to a home among the East Coast affluent, homosexual club-goers and some that you would least expect to partake. It is powerfully addictive, and it is extremely dangerous, both to produce and to use. The trade in meth is both fluid and dynamic. It is a neverending mood swing characterized by the methodology its producers utilize to synthesize the drug, the resulting purity of their product and the means of its distribution. Polydrug cartels based in Mexico have spent the last decade fashioning a vigorous and stable network of methamphetamine production that supplies the majority of the US market through well-established trafficking routes. Meth prices have, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center, decreased since a peak in 2007; the average purity of the drug steadily increased over the same period. Despite the increasing availability of Mexican meth in the Meth labs provide major challenges to the responder community. ©Solon Fire 7th Annual CBRNe Convergence, Hyatt Regency, Long Island, New York, 28-30 October 2014, www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2014 66 CBRNe WORLD October 2013 www.cbrneworld.com CBRNeWORLD United States, domestic production, especially in the form of small-scale labs, is flourishing. The phenomenon is most common, and its ramifications most clearly seen, in rural America, where lives are destroyed in and around small towns most of the country will never hear of. The increasing multitude of small-scale laboratories and localized distribution networks stimulates new markets that have so far been bypassed by the cartels. The highly organized groups favour serving skyrocketing demand from markets in urban centres, like Bridgeport, Connecticut, where a man of God fell from grace. Bridgeport, Connecticut, 2011 The Monsignor hasn’t been himself lately… A few months before the Hope explosion victim poisoned those trying to save his arm and life, parishioners to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St Augustine in Bridgeport, Connecticut, began to notice that their pastor, Monsignor Kevin Wallin, was not quite right lately. Being thinner wasn’t enough to trigger alarm bells, but he also began to walk strangely, stooped over with an unusual gait. Suspicious men were seen trooping in and out of the church refectory to meet with the now twitching and irritable priest. The diocese investigated Wallin and determined that he had likely been engaged in sexual activity with multiple men inside the refectory. His parishioners were informed that he had to leave for personal and health reasons. Church officials, after later finding a cornucopia of sexual materials hidden in the refectory, decided that their son had sinned but had broken no laws and could eventually recover and resume his duties at a new parish. The monsignor resisted treatment and was warned he could be permanently defrocked. By now, according to authorities, he served mostly meth. He continued to pick up his church stipend while he allegedly grossed over $300,000 from the trade. Authorities said that around the time of his arrest he had been making plans to purchase an adult bookstore in order to launder his gains. Despite his holiness, Wallin was not immune to the effects of the drug on his sympathetic nervous system. The priest suffered from noticeable physical manifestations of methamphetamine use as described by his acquaintances, including weight loss, twitching, and alternating states of high energy followed by lethargy. Additionally, Wallin demonstrated irritability, paranoia, and a penchant for irrational thoughts and behaviour. Chronic meth use can result in more pronounced and more dangerous symptoms, including a propensity for violence and hallucinations. Physically, things are not much better. Over the long term, it can result in the formation of open sores that cannot CBRNeWORLD ICE ICE BABY! heal, and “meth mouth” – a condition of severe tooth decay. In the positive column, meth bestows upon the user euphoria and the gift of what has been described as an unquenchable thirst for sex, but at the cost of severely handicapping both inhibition and judgment. This, along with two notable but best left unexplained physical symptoms, increases the user’s risk for HIV transmission and acquisition. Given the high prevalence of HIV among men who sleep with men, there is grave concern that the drug is serving to fuel the AIDS epidemic. In case there is any doubt, methamphetamine use is not good for one’s health. Making meth is not much safer. West, Texas, 2013 Come and join the Party Nazi… Medical Park Hospital in Hope possessed hazmat equipment, but on the day the burning man arrived it could not be found, forcing the medical staff to take him outside and douse him in sterile saline. The professional cleanup process would last until morning, and the ER remained closed for at least seven hours in the meantime. The patient was eventually taken by helicopter to Little Rock, where he was treated for second- and third-degree burns, as well as shrapnel wounds caused by glass fragments. The guilty poison in this case was anhydrous ammonia, a colourless gas that, in addition to being caustic, is also explosive. It is usually found in fertilizers and refrigerants, and is believed to be one of the substances, along with ammonium nitrate, that caused a catastrophic explosion in April 2013 at a fertilizer company in West, Texas. After the explosion that killed 15 and wounded 160, it was revealed that the company had been a target for thieves who had tampered with anhydrous ammonia tanks on at least 11 occasions. They regularly besieged the tanks in order to siphon off enough liquid gas, about three or four gallons at a time, in order to set up a good cook. The presence of anhydrous ammonia around the patient in Hope signaled that he was using the process known as the Birch reduction method to synthesize the stimulant. The method also goes by another, more ominous, name that pays homage to a common misconception among meth producers: the Nazi method. Japan, 1893 – Germany, 1988 No Panzerschokolade before bed or you will never get to sleep, ever… The belief that Nazi scientists created methamphetamine to aid their troops in World War II possibly has its roots in outlaw biker culture. Regardless, the original creation of the drug has been credited to Nagayoshi Nagai of Japan in 1893, who synthesized it from the precursor chemical ephedrine. Some sources claim the discovery was not made until 1919, but regardless, it was not widely used until the outbreak of World War II, when both Axis and Allied forces were sometimes given the drug to increase their alertness during long missions. Amphetamine, methamphetamine’s stimulant cousin, is still occasionally used by the US military, but not without controversy. Lawyers defending US pilots in a 2002 friendly-fire incident that wounded Canadian soldiers argued that the sanctioned use of the stimulant may have affected the pilots’ judgment. But it is the German use of stimulants that has become lore in meth culture, despite the fact that usage during World War II was more widespread in Japan, where huge stockpiles of meth fueled a major epidemic post-1945. The first synthesis of amphetamine in 1887 is still credited more often to German scientist Lazar Edeleanu, who was a Romanian. Perhaps some of the reverence is deserved. The East German military did not remove “Pervitin”, as it was known, from its supply list until 1988. Pervitin also went by another and somewhat catchier title, Panzerschokolade. The United States, 2005 The Land of the Meth Free… for a little while… The Nazi method gained esteem in the United States around the time the DDR’s National People’s Army disavowed use of methamphetamine. At this point the Birch reduction replaced the phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) method that was made popular beginning in the 1970s by notorious outlaw biker gangs originating in California. Restrictions on the sale of the P2P precursor phenyl acetic acid led immediately to its declining popularity, but it was also lowquality in comparison to the Nazi method and the red phosphorus method (red-P), which use ephedrine or pseudoephedrine as precursors. The P2P method takes twice as long and results in an inferior product. In the mid-2000s, both Mexico and the United States put the squeeze on the availability of meth precursors, particularly pseudoephedrine. The cartels responded by going back to the P2P method, despite the pinch on quality and longer production times. For its part, the US government passed the Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005, which restricted the quantity of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine that could be sold to any individual, usually in the form of cold medicine. By 2006, the overall purity level of meth seized in the United States began to fall and the price of the drug began increasing. As a result, the number of meth users declined. In states such as Oregon and Mississippi, where more drastic restrictions were introduced in attempts to solve a more difficult problem, methamphetamine incidents such as lab and drug seizures fell more precipitously. In a fashion that would make any capitalist or horse thief proud, the free market prevailed by 2008 and the trend completely reversed itself. The cartels proved their mettle and ramped up production with P2P, found access to new sources of pseudoephedrine, and outsourced a portion of their production. In the United States, the meth game evolved almost entirely to meet the reality, and in the process initiated a new iteration in the methamphetamine epidemic in America’s small towns and countryside. Hempstead County, Arkansas, 2013 It’s Shake & Bake, and I survived… As legal restrictions created shortages of the chemicals necessary to carry out the 7th Annual CBRNe Convergence, Hyatt Regency, Long Island, New York, 28-30 October 2014, www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2014 68 CBRNe WORLD October 2013 www.cbrneworld.com CBRNeWORLD Breaking Bad aside most meth processors are good cooks, but bad scientists. ©Solon Fire Birch reduction method, cookers have adopted a new technique that requires less amounts of pseudoephedrine and replaces the more volatile anhydrous ammonia with the notorious fertilizer ammonium nitrate. Other ingredients include lithium (found in batteries), water, and camp stove fuel. The “onepot” or “shake and bake” method calls for all of the chemicals to be placed into a single plastic bottle. The reaction takes only 40 minutes, and while it produces only a small amount of methamphetamine in comparison to other methods, it creates less waste and can turn just about any quiet spot into a clandestine laboratory. The one-pot method provides a significantly more difficult challenge to law enforcement agencies tasked with putting a lid on the problem. Despite their small size and limited equipment, whatever area is being used as a one-pot lab can be just as dangerous as a fully stocked lab created for massproduction. It would not be unusual to see a mobile lab, for example, that contains a higher concentration of flammables than a permanently situated one. Cookers with larger operations may spend a lot of time trying to conceal their operations, but they have inherent disadvantages. For example, producing meth releases powerful fumes that can be detected from a distance and are dangerous to the cooker. The existence of unusual ventilation systems could point to a structure being used a laboratory. The toxic fumes may also kill surrounding vegetation at a permanent lab, and excessive or unusual garbage could also give up the ship. Most of these risks are mitigated by small-batch production that can be located just about anywhere. Hempstead County Sheriff James Singleton has probably seen more of meth than most would care to. The county is uniquely situated to experience a sizable piece of everything that meth has to offer America, including foreign and domestically produced narcotics. He recently explained why location matters. “We are right here in the corner of southwest Arkansas,” Sheriff Singleton noted. “We have Texas 31 miles away and Louisiana about 47 miles away, right here in the corner. Oklahoma is also just down the road about 40 miles, leaving us in the I-30 corridor where… just a lot of drugs travel through. A lot of drugs. “What we’ve seen lately is the onepot method,” he continued. “You used to find a lot of Pyrex, this, that and the other. You could make a lab out of a Coke bottle right now, just a 32-ounce Coke bottle. We find labs in cars, in trucks and motel rooms. We had a pickup truck we found not too long ago. It had two pots in it, two plastic Coke bottles, and if that thing had blown up going down the road there ain’t no telling how many people would have been injured, especially those driving the vehicle. All you need to do is find yourself a secluded area. We also have a lot of hunters that come across areas where meth has obviously been cooked.” Any time officers enter a suspected 7th Annual CBRNe Convergence, Hyatt Regency, Long Island, New York, 28-30 October 2014, www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2014 www.cbrneworld.com October 2013 CBRNe WORLD 69 CBRNeWORLD ICE ICE BABY! As 'Kenny' puts it, people get 'blowed up' by not realising that by putting one chemical with another there will be a reaction ©Solon Fire lab, they have to take significant precautions, but as the number of small labs proliferates, any space can be potentially dangerous. When asked if it could be a frightening experience, Sheriff Singleton replied, “Yeah, it can be… You’re taking a chance with your health. I’m asking officers… Man, I have to ask them every day to put their life on the line, but still, this is a different kind of situation where something could get on them that they wouldn’t know about until it’s too late.” Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, 2013 Have a smurftastic tweak! To obtain the amounts of pseudoephedrine needed to synthesize methamphetamine, Hempstead County meth producers, both large and small, rely on “smurfing” operations to obtain the pseudoephedrine and other chemicals needed for their operations. Members of smurfing groups travel throughout a region, often taking advantage of differences in state laws, to obtain precursors. They can then sell the chemicals to brokers or directly to methamphetamine producers. Despite restrictions, law enforcement agencies believe the incidence of smurfing has increased throughout the southeast region of the United States, and is responsible for the concurrent rise in domestic meth production over the last few years. For meth trade participants who reside in and around Hempstead County, a smurfing outing is “a day trip”, according to Sheriff Singleton. Rural America, 2013 – Faces of Meth… For many veteran cookers, synthesizing methamphetamine is as much an art as a science. It is an activity that relies on a surprisingly high degree of innovation, adaptability, and resourcefulness to continue successfully, but one that generally ends with sickness, death, or incarceration. It is risky for veteran cookers, but the shift towards simpler methods has increased the number of novices trying it for themselves. A study of ethnographic patterns in illicit methamphetamine production in the rural south noted that larger-scale producers in some areas of Arkansas and Kentucky, those likely using the Birch reduction method, are second- or third-generation descendents of moonshine producers. Yet, even these experienced, traditionally inclined cookers injure themselves as a result of rushing because of the craving for the drug, a fear of getting caught, or simply inadequately dealing with the byproducts of synthesis. Kenny, an Arkansan who participated in the study, looked down on those who had no understanding for what they were involved in. “You can pull [recipes] down off the Internet,” Kenny said. “That’s exactly how people’s getting blowed up. They don’t really realize that when you mix this chemical with that chemical you’d have a reaction. And if you don’t know what reaction to look for, it’s dangerous.” Sheriff Singleton agreed that the Birch reduction method remains popular only among the old-time cooks. “To be truthful,” he said, “the younger meth cooks don’t like using the ammonia because they are afraid of it. Most of the old timers are particular about the recipe and they way they handle the anhydrous ammonia.” Popular culture often romanticizes moonshiners as American outlawheroes. And while the American outlawhero certainly plays by his own rules and disregards authority for his or her own righteous reasons, it is hard imagine one with meth mouth and a series of unhealing open sores across his face. More importantly, the American outlaw-hero generally represents a time gone by. It is doubtful that methamphetamine will be going anywhere, anytime soon. 7th Annual CBRNe Convergence, Hyatt Regency, Long Island, New York, 28-30 October 2014, www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2014 70 CBRNe WORLD October 2013 www.cbrneworld.com