St. Louis Company May Have Answer To Ending Meth Labs

[Sherman A1]

Not many of us are chemists.

Yet by removing one oxygen atom average people here in Missouri regularly are turning common decongestants like Sudafed and Claritin-D into the illicit drug methamphetamine.

Nationwide those explosive mom and pop meth labs were estimated by a Rand study to cost taxpayers more than $23 billion a year in health care costs, child endangerment and clean-up.

But as St. Louis Public Radio’s Maria Altman reports a local pharmaceutical company may have the answer.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/st-louis-company-may-have-answer-ending-meth-labs

[hobbit709]

1. won't do much to slow down the big boys.

It might slow down the small time meth cookers until some genius figures out a way to get around it.
The cartels aren't getting millions of antihistamine tablets and turning it into meth. They're doing it the old fashioned way and producing it by the ton.

[Sherman A1]

3. Granted, but

It is a start.

[msanthrope]

4. But it will slow people with kids, cooking in their kitchens and

garages.

[hobbit709]

5. Half of them don't even get out out of the Walmart parking lot before they start "cooking" it.

[msanthrope]

17. True. But this might put a halt to that, too. nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Honest question -- what if the work-a-round is cost/effort-prohibitive?

[hobbit709]

7. Might stop the Walmart speed freaks.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. I'm OK with that. n/t

[hobbit709]

10. I meant to say it might stop them from making it. I doubt it will stop them from using.

[Sunlei]

12. you're on the mark. The factories that wholesale the tons to make the common drugs won't be stopped.

Just the common people who want a tablet because they have allergies will have to pay a premium. The drug stores already don't sell over the counter without ID.

[Buzz Clik]

15. +1

[Aviation Pro]

20. What big boys?

Walter White? Gustavo Fring? Don Eladio?

[Sunlei]

31. they can buy tons of the NEW cheap base product from places like china,india.

here's one article for you. The drug factories have already changed the receipe. Americas war on drugs is such a trillion dollar failure!

ST. LOUIS — Mexican drug cartels are quietly filling the void in the nation's drug market created by the long effort to crack down on American-made methamphetamine, flooding U.S. cities with exceptionally cheap, extraordinarily potent meth from factory-like "superlabs."

The crackdowns that began a decade ago have made it more difficult to prepare large batches, so many American meth users have turned to a simpler method that uses a 2-liter soda bottle filled with just enough ingredients to produce a small amount of the drug for personal use.

Like the U.S., Mexico has tightened laws and regulations on pseudoephedrine, though some labs still are able to obtain large amounts from China and India. To fill the void, cartel chemists have turned to an old recipe known as P2P that first appeared in the 1960s and 1970s in some parts of the western U.S.

That recipe uses the organic compound phenylacetone. Because of its use in meth, the U.S. government made it a controlled substance in 1980, essentially stopping that form of meth in the U.S. But in Mexico, the cartels can get phenylacetone from other countries, DEA experts said.

In the third quarter of 2011, 85 percent of lab samples taken from U.S. meth seizures came from the P2P process – up from 50 percent a little more than a year earlier, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/11/mexico-drug-cartels-meth_n_1957378.html

[TexasProgresive]

2. It will be great if this works and gets implemented

[Sunlei]

9. how about adding a permanent safe dye to all the decongestents people turn to meth?

a dye that only shows when the tablet is mixed with the meth making simple chemicals. Be pretty easy then to spot meth addicts with their floresent green noses.

[MadHound]

11. This will be effective for approximately one month,

By the time that month is up, some tweaking chemical genius will figure out how to get around this and add that O2 atom back to the mix, and meth labs will continue to run.

You want to put an end to all the problems associated with meth, legalize clean, safe speed. That's what these people are looking for, give it to them. You will put an end to all of the problems associated with meth and turn meth addiction into what it really is, a health issue.

[loudsue]

27. There you go...making perfectly good sense. This country does DO good sense.

We gotta make a buck screwing it up and fixing it, over & over, to keep the economy running.

[Thor_MN]

32. Actually, it doesn't make any sense.

They remove an atom of oxygen to make Meth, adding oxygen to pseudoephedrine would make something, but it would not be methamphetamine. Also you can't add an atom of O2, O2 is a molecule of oxygen. O2 is two atoms of oxygen bound together.

Beyond the chemistry fail, however, the concept is correct.

[loudsue]

33. You're right. I meant to say does NOT DO good sense.

I'm screwing up all my posts today.

[Le Taz Hot]

13. I don't know any family that hasn't been affected

by methamphetamines. There are sections of my family that have gone through two generations of meth use and their children are learning the ropes. Anything that keeps amateurs from making this stuff is a step in the right direction.

[JimDandy]

16. I don't know any family that HAS been affected

by meth.

Sorry to hear that. Must be devastating to those children to not be able to get out of the addiction cycle.

[Le Taz Hot]

18. Really?

Wow! I didn't know that was possible. It's so pervasive. Blessings to you, my friend and may they continue.

[JimDandy]

24. Probably just lucky

because that map of meth lab discoveries is scary and would seem to suggest that your experience is more normal than mine.

Now marijuana is a different thing. I live in CO and my home state is WA.

[randr]

14. The campaign to remove Qualudes was successful

and the same could happen with Sudafed products.
The pharmaceutical industry needs to be held accountable and made to pay for their damage.

[Travis_0004]

23. Why should pharmaceutical companies have to pay

They make a legal product that is needed by many. The percent of people that use it to make meth is very small, but it doesn't mean ephedrine is a bad drug. I have bad seasonal allergies, so I take claritin all the time.

[randr]

28. It has been well documented how the industry resists controls on quanties and sales

of it's products. More than ten years ago I watched a special report, on which channel I can not recall, that followed Sudafed shipments from Korean plants to mid-western communities. I am sure a simple search would provide additional documentation. All attempts of legislative control of distribution, state as well as federal, have been thwarted.
Remember, the pharmaceutical industry is the largest lobby of influence in Washington politics. Their huge profits are directly responsible for our rising health care costs and their greed fans the meth epidemic.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. Very interesting which states have highest # meth lab siezures.

Looks like more of an Eastern USA issue.

'Course, measuring "seizures" can be a bit off, but still..........

[baldguy]

21. The states have highest number of meth lab siezures.

Are Red states.

[Le Taz Hot]

22. That could explain a lot.

Just sayin'.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

25. They love their meth in the midwest.

[Sherman A1]

29. Jefferson County, MO

just to the SW of St. Louis is often described at the Meth Capitol of the Planet.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

30. I've heard that.

Bad drug to be addicted to.

[JimDandy]

26. The largest number of cases

seem to be following along the route of the free trade highway that was proposed years ago. Wonder if the highway is up and going?