From: Marnie Regen Subject: The New 'Speed' Date: 1996/12/27 Message-ID: <32C3F3DC.46DF@earthlink.net>#1/3 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard I thought some of you would find this interesting. The scare tactics, crack analogies and use of the words 'violence' and 'epidemic' make a great story. Have a safe & healthy new year... Marnie Regen San Jose Mercury News Friday, December 27, 1996 Front page - Special Report http://www.sjmercury.com/news/local/docs/075800.htm The New 'Speed' Abuse of potent, cheap methamphetamine has reached epidemic level, experts say BY DANIEL VASQUEZ Mercury News Staff Writer The drug is the stuff of nightmares, driving an Arizona father to allegedly hack the head off his teenage son because he thought the boy was a devil. A Fremont man who family members say is a loving son stabbed his 76-year-old father repeatedly, police said, thinking aliens had invaded the elderly man's body. A drug-crazed thief committed point-blank shotgun murders of two teens he mistakenly thought cheated him, Alameda County authorities say. He denies the killing but said: ``I can tell you that that drug makes me the evilest person in the world.'' The drug is methamphetamine, but in an alarming new form that is twice as potent and, experts say, more likely to provoke such unbridled violence. Because it's cheaper and easier to make than in the past, today's methamphetamine is flooding California and spreading across the nation. In San Jose and other cities, the onslaught is so large the federal Drug Enforcement Administration calls California a ``source country,'' providing 90 percent of the nation's supply for the drug. Stifled in the 1980s by laws regulating the most popular precursor chemicals, methamphetamine ``cooks'' created a new formula in the early 1990s that now makes up 90 percent of the ``crank'' confiscated by state agents, who last year hauled in 18,000 pounds -- a tenfold increase from 1991 -- and closed one clandestine lab every 19 hours. The easy-to-follow recipe is on the Internet and in books, requiring very little equipment that can be stored anywhere, in motel rooms, bathrooms, storage lockers or even a backpack. Ingredients and supplies to make a batch of homemade methamphetamine can be found at a general variety store for about $200. Highly toxic and volatile, the chemicals also can be bought in larger quantities -- legally -- from chemical companies. ``There's no doubt we have an epidemic of this new meth,'' said drug expert Dr. Alex Stalcup, a former director of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco. ``And where meth goes, violence follows.'' Produces phenomenal high The new methamphetamine produces extreme euphoria, increased alertness and a sense of boundless energy. Users call it a phenomenal high, lasting hours, days, even weeks. But there's a dark side. High dosage or chronic use can lead to nervousness and irritability. It's not uncommon for users to hear voices or hallucinate, envisioning menacing rats or skin-crawling bugs. Others become convinced they are targets of police investigations, space aliens or other dangers, said Stalcup, who runs a drug rehabilitation center in Contra Costa County. Stalcup said such prolonged abuse -- called ``tweaking'' -- ``is the most negative thing I've ever seen in my life . . . it can bring on violence that is unbelievable.'' While there are no studies directly linking methamphetamine use to violence, voluntary drug tests of men and women arrested on violent crime charges in San Jose suggest the drug is being used by a greater percentage of violent offenders. Sixteen-year-old Evangeline Reyel and 18-year-old Mark Williams had only known Charles Edward Crawford II for a few weeks when Crawford, who had been binging on the drug, allegedly executed them with a shotgun along a remote road in the hills above Fremont this year. Crawford, a 22-year-old former high school wrestling star, told police he spent days in a motel room smoking methamphetamine with the couple after the three burglarized the homes of Evangeline's relatives in San Jose, taking a pickup truck, some weapons and a television set. Although he ended up with most of the loot, Crawford later began thinking his cohorts had somehow ripped him off and started believing they would somehow lead police to him. On April 15, police said, Crawford drove Evangeline and Williams to the secluded road and, using a shotgun stolen from the girl's uncle, shot Williams and then the 16-year-old, ignoring the young mother's pleas to spare her. Crawford, who is awaiting trial, said he does not remember what happened that night. After he was arrested, he allegedly told a jailer: ``I think I might have done some things that aren't like me . . . (I) hope it was all a bad dream.'' Its evolution In the 1960s and '70s, ``speed'' was the domain of California motorcycle gangs who made it in rural fields, using a chemical extraction process known for creating a pungent odor -- like stinky socks -- that could be trailed for miles. The process took as long as three days and yielded low-grade methamphetamine. A decade later, after laws were passed to control production by restricting the sales of the precursor chemicals, the cooks discovered a reduction process using hydriodic acid and ephedrine that produced a methamphetamine twice as potent, less smelly and in one-third the time. The revolution was followed by another phenomenon: Mexican drug gang cartels took control of the market, setting up labs throughout the state that now produce an estimated 90 percent of the state's supply. Santa Clara County prosecutors are trying a case involving the largest seizure in county history -- a Morgan Hill lab allegedly run by illegal immigrants containing $2 million worth of the drug. In a garage, police found 80 gallons of a solution that was to be converted into 400 pounds of methamphetamine powder. But most labs are much smaller -- so-called ``Stove Top'' or ``Beavis and Butthead'' labs run by small-scale dealers in suburban areas. The makers vary from high school dropouts with no chemistry education to professionals with graduate degrees. They rely on handwritten recipes, underground publications or instructions passed by word of mouth, dumping their toxic leftovers in streams, lakes and sewage systems. ``They have to change clothes three or four times'' during a batch, said Christy McCampbell, special agent in charge of the state narcotics bureau office in San Jose. ``One guy got so burned that when he tried to drive for help, a lot of his skin ended up attached to the leather seat of his car.'' In July, an explosion led police to a Los Gatos home where they found a man with chemical burns on his face and body. He said the burns were from a barbecue in his back yard, but police said the wounds were the result of a methamphetamine lab fire. Two months later, Vallejo police evacuated a motel and adjacent preschool for hours after finding a man who had set up a drug lab in a motel bathroom, his two young children in an adjoining room. ``The slightest disturbance would have caused a major explosion,'' said Vallejo firefighter William Tweedy. ``These people have no idea what kind of danger they are putting themselves and others in.'' Federal drug agents say the explosion of new methamphetamine is spreading east from California into the Midwest. Alarm over methamphetamine has reached the White House: President Clinton's $15 billion drug-fighting plan includes the most aggressive attack against the drug in the country's history. Calling it a ``deadly drug,'' Clinton warned: ``We have to stop it before it becomes the crack of '90s.'' On a smaller scale, prosecutors across the state are sounding their own bells. ``There's no doubt about it. It's a violent drug. . . . What's news is we're in the middle of an epidemic,'' said Theodore Landswick, a senior Alameda County deputy district attorney assigned to the Fremont Municipal Court. ``Nine out of 10 cases in our court are meth-related; not just (cases of) violence, but all cases,'' said Landswick, adding that his office gets more driving-under-the-influence cases for methamphetamine than alcohol. Researchers from the National Institute of Justice, a research branch of the Department of Justice, are targeting San Jose and four other major methamphetamine-producing areas for a market study aimed at determining who is buying the drug, who they buy it from and how much they pay. Concern over possible link But the violence associated with today's methamphetamine is perhaps the greatest concern of law enforcement agents. Some recent examples: May 17, 1995 -- A man high on the drug stole a 60-ton National Guard tank and tore through two San Diego neighborhoods, ramming 40 cars and injuring a mother and child before he became stuck. One officer used bolt cutters on the tank, while another shot and killed the man through the clearing. July, 22, 1995 -- New Mexico police arrested a father for allegedly beheading his 14-year-old son while under the influence of the drug. Eric Smith, 34, of Arizona, told investigators he killed his son because voices told him the boy was possessed by the devil. He was arrested after motorists saw him hacking the boy's head by the side of a road. Oct. 22, 1995 -- Mariafelisa Smith, 27, of Martinez, was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for giving birth to her son in a toilet and letting him die there. Smith said she delivered while high on methamphetamine. Police found the baby in a garbage bag at her home. One of the most chilling stories occurred in a quiet tree-lined Fremont neighborhood in March. With his young son sleeping in a nearby room, police said Thomas Ben Van Deusen II crept into the bedroom of his 76-year-old father. With a kitchen knife, he repeatedly stabbed his father in the neck, face and chest. After the deed, Van Deusen, 37, walked outside, washed blood off his body with a hose and stood mumbling until officers arrived, police said. The grim work may have been fatal if not for his sister, Terry Valencia, who the night before made her husband put trigger locks on her brother's guns. She knew he had spent weeks in his bedroom snorting methamphetamine and listening to music. He seldom ate and was very moody. ``It wasn't him, it wasn't my brother,'' she said. ``It was the drug, that's what changed him. He loves my dad; he would never do that on his own. It was the drug.'' Van Deusen said methamphetamine made him think aliens had taken over and in a panic he attacked his father, ignoring the cries: ``I'm your father. I'm your father.'' The elder Van Deusen is blind in his left eye and deals with huge medical bills. His son is recovering in a drug program and lives nearby. ``That's the kind of stuff this drug does to people,'' Valencia said. ``What I want people to know is, if you have a son using that drug in your house, this can happen to you. They won't know who you are and may kill you. My father was lucky.'' ---