deputydawg
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,607
I am getting my materials ready for another town hall type meeting / drug identification class that I do. Gathering my materials I see a trend which I have talked about before with Meth use and labs.<br /><br />Meth has been around for many many years all over the world in various forms. Too much to go over here. After WWII it became popular here mainly due to soldiers coming home from combat and not fitting in. They had trouble joining society after spending their late teen years at war. When they came back a group of them joined into what we came to know as the outlaw biker gangs. Originally the pissed off b@$tards from bloomingtion California among others. Anyway they came in with meth. The government and the medical community also helped with the meth use and trade with the treatment for herion addiction with a wonder drug called methadone. Meth was also used legaly for weight loss, sleeping disorders, headaches etc. Even the allied and axis troops used them as energy supplements, in the form of amphetamines. <br /><br />In time the methamphetamine craze started. The biker gangs started it and controlled the trade for years. In the very beginning they knew it could be made, and had recipes they had brought back from Germany. (at least that is the common belief). They did not have access to or knowledge of chemicals so they recruited chemistry students from Berkly in the first known meth lab. The chemistry students had knowledge and access to chemicals, the bikers had access to women and money so they worked together. That was when the P2P labs became popular. These labs were the ones using red phospherous and other chemicals and took up a whole room to operate. These are also the labs that blew up often. <br /><br />In the early days of meth it was not illegal. The government then made it illegal to keep people from using it.<br /><br />In time the government had a good idea of restricting the chemicals used to manufacture. This only lead to more clandestine labs, more accidents and deaths and drove the trade farther underground. At that time it was still controlled by the outlaw biker gangs.<br /><br />By restricting the chemicals it made it harder to make. They governmnet then had a great idea to increase penalties for manufacture, and make it a federal crime to possess the chemicals and the lab supplies, glassware etc. So this eventually lead to what we started calling the nazi meth labs. These were the ones known now using anhydrous amonia, pseudo ephedrine and muriatic acid. These labs were dangerous but not quite as explosive as the old P2P labs.<br /><br />The biker gangs sold off the meth trade to the mexican mafia and other hispanic gangs. By restricting the chemicals the government also succeeded in driving the price down. Since now anyone can make it with a pyrex baking dish and a pop bottle, it became cheap. The purity went from 98% average to about 4% average, meaning less quality and less control. Troubles started when someone would use the bathroom or nazi dope, then get their hands on some P2P dope. The purity would kill them quick. <br /><br />Then we were introduced to the "war on drugs". In the beginning there was a huge difference, for a brief time. The fed government poured money into forming multi jurisdiction task forces, training, and equipment. Law enforcement became organized and well trained. We started executing search warrants based on information, and really making a dent in the dealers. Search warrants were executed day or night, knock and announce or no knock, anything that was safe and got the job done. We really liked serving warrants in the late night/early morning hours. The suspect would be sleeping and it would be safer. Almost nobody got hurt because we hit them by surprise. Some lawyer decided that was not good enough, so we had to have a reason to do warrants after 7p.m. We then started telling the judge that most drug activity took place at night. Eventually that was not good enough and we needed more reason to do one after 7p.m. Then they took away the no knock warrants. We used to be able to get a no knock warrant to guarantee the suspect did not flush the dope down a toilet. Now they decided the only way to get a no knock is if we can say with evidence backing us that there is an immediate threat to safety. EDven that is not a guarantee, one last month we proved the man owned automatic assault weapons, handguns, and had made threats to law enforcement. Oh yeah he also took a shot at a cop and was out on bond for that. Couldn't do no knock, had to knock on the door and announce our presence. Then give him plenty of time to get ready for us.<br /><br />The latest now the government has outlawed and restricted pseudoephedrine. That hurts our investigations too. We used to go to Wal Mart, K-Mart etc once a week and watch the security tapes of the cold medacine to see who was buying what. When we found someone buying many many boxes of pseudo we would find out who they are. This was legal because the store posted a sign alerting people they were on tape. We also posted signs around here alerting them that local law enforcement would also viewthe tapes for any illegal activity. We would watch the people buying a large amount, and 10 times out of 10 find them with a lab or trading pseudo for dope to the cook. Then the government restricted the purchase of pseudo thinking that would eliminate the use. Now we find people buying 2 boxes, steeling 3. Now it is even harder to find the cooks by pseudo. Since they can't buy it easy, they get their tweekers to go in and get it for them. Now we see 10 to 15 people working for 1 cook, all going in buying 2 boxes. Then going to the next store and all buying 2 boxes and so on. <br />In this time they also outlawed the use of anhydrous amonia for other than agricultural purposes. This made the cooks figure out how to cook with Parsons Amonia. <br /><br />Our government is making itr harder to catch the dope cooks, therefore making it harder to enforce the laws. Also when the DEA took down the columbian drug lords they took away their control over the drug trade. Then it was organized, and they policed each other. Even though it was a corrupt government, a murderous group of war lords, it was heavily controlled by a hard hand by them. Removing them from the picture allowed any street punk to use, sell, or manufacture dope. The synthetic drugs like LSD, XTC, and other opiates have been and still are controlled by middle eastern terrorist groups. This has been known for years but never addressed by our government.<br />The Clinton years also hurt us by taking away most of the funding. The courts with their liberal views have hurt investigations too with their view on certain things, like having to knock and announce our presence. Since then most of the dope gets flushed before we get through the door. There has always been the requirement of probable cause to get a search warrant, even a little beyond probable cause since it is someones home. It is very hard to get search warrants.<br /><br />Just a glimps at the history of things in my world. We will see how the next few years go.
