You can do anything you set your mind to; it’s simply a concept of mind over matter. But what happens when the matter distorts the mind? What if the matter controls the person— keeping him active and awake for days, hallucinating while tearing at his own skin, and leaving him in a seemingly helpless depression?
That is the power of methamphetamine.
Meth, made from over-the-counter sudafedrin, is a fairly easy drug to produce. All the supplies needed to manufacture meth can be bought at Walmart, and most ingredients are supplies people already have in their homes, such as drain opener, AA batteries, and lighter fluid.
The 2011 “U.S. National Drug Threat Assessment,” conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, reported that 2,015 meth laboratories were seized in the Great Lakes region during the year 2010. The only region with a higher number of seizures was the Southeast, which had 2,521 in 12 states.
According to the Michigan State Police Methamphetamine Reporting Act published in April 2011, the majority of meth lab seizures are concentrated in the southwest part of the state, and 75 percent are using the “one-pot” ammonia nitrate method, commonly known as the “shake and bake” method.
Hillsdale County Prosecuting Attorney Neal Brady started prosecuting people for the production and use of this illegal drug in 2003. He said when it first started, not many people knew what meth was or how to make it.
“Now, though, we see a family tree-type line of meth cookers,” Brady said. “Instead of passing on a trade like shoemaking or plumbing, fathers are teaching their sons to make meth.”
He said that meth tends to be a more rural drug because of the anhydrous method initially used to produce it. Meth cooks found easy access to the anhydrous ammonia needed to complete the reaction by syphoning farmers’ large fertilizer tanks.
The production has since moved away from the anhydrous method to the one-pot “shake and bake” method, where the entire reaction takes place in a two-liter plastic bottle using the ammonia nitrate in cold medicine.
Hillsdale County Sheriff Deputy Wes Ludeker, who has been on the OMNI III Narcotics Team for 13 years, said the concentration of meth in southwest Michigan is also a result of the demographic.
“Meth is more of a low-income, low-education drug,” Ludeker said. “And it tends to predominantly be a white problem.”
Also, users are generally in their late 20s and 30s, he said.
Ludeker said that when meth became an increasing problem in Michigan, the state government trained officers to be meth certified, enabling them to conduct drug investigations, dismantle labs, and take care of hazardous materials.
During his time on the task force, Ludeker has seen everything from the environmental pollution caused by cooks disposing of their hazardous trash on the sides of county roads to meth lab fires and explosions.
He was once called to the site of an one-pot lab explosion that resulted from a chemical pressure build-up in a closed bathroom.
“There was so much force that it actually moved the wall out into the hallway and busted the windows,” Ludeker said. “We found glass from the window sticking up out of the ground probably 40 feet from the apartment. It was a one-pot cook with a two-liter bottle.”
The cook suffered external burns and damage to his lungs.
The primary way the police catch meth producers, however, is by monitoring sudafedrin purchases. The legal amount one can purchase is 3.6 grams per day, Ludeker said.
If multiple people in one household consistently purchase their sudafedrin limit, the police monitor their other purchases looking for more meth production materials in order to build a case for a search warrant.
“Nobody has a cold 12 months out of the year,” Ludeker said. “And when you have the wife and husband buying their maximum of sudafed every month for a consistent time, that’s usually an indicator.”
Since November 2011, Brady prosecuted 24 cases on the charge of maintaining a meth lab. However, he said the numbers do not accurately reflect the amount of meth in Hillsdale. He said the narcotics team in Hillsdale has been reduced over the past few years due to funding cuts.
“There are so many people that we know are cooking, but we have been unable to catch them,” Ludeker said. “What we are doing is minor compared to what is actually happening because there are so many people involved. Especially after the one-pot became an issue. It just got out of control.”
If someone is convicted on meth possession, he could spend a maximum of 10 years in prison.
“We are really saving them from destroying themselves by sending them to prison,” Brady said.
Even time in prison doesn’t stop many addicts.
“I’ve prosecuted too many repeat offenders,” Brady said. “They have to have a will to change.”
But sometimes, offenders will receive probation time and court ordered rehab.
Hope House is a rehab center in Jonesville, Mich., that provides residential living and counseling for men and women seeking to escape their addictions, although not all residents are court ordered.
Assistant Director of Hope House Kelly VanBuskirk is a state-certified drug and alcohol counselor with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s in counseling. Her husband is a recovering meth addict, so she personally understands the effects of drug addiction.
“Somebody that is abusing meth also will look like somebody who is bipolar,” she said. “It is often difficult to distinguish between the two. Sometimes you won’t see the mental illness until they are clean. And it’s hard to say which comes first or causes the other.”
Because meth depletes the level of serotonin in the brain, it is very hard for a recovering addict to find happiness in everyday life, and depression becomes the most lingering side effect, she said.
“We are kind of a whole program where we don’t just focus on the substance abuse, because there is usually an underlying issue,” VanBuskirk said.
At Hope House, they strive to integrate residents back into society and working real jobs.
“Employment is one of the best cures,” Brady said. “Most meth addicts are not employed and are on government funding.”
Being back in the real world, however, comes with the risk of falling back into old habits.
“We kind of let them be exposed to triggers in a safe environment,” VanBuskirk said.
She once counseled a girl who said she couldn’t go to Walmart anymore because it triggered her addiction.
VanBuskirk responded to her saying, “Great!
Now we have 90 days to work on that, because I can’t make Walmart go away.”
While the fight against meth in Hillsdale and other southwestern Michigan counties continues, it is not the only drug in the area. Both Brady and Ludeker said marijuana is most common. Brady said he prosecutes heroin users quite often as well.
And word on the street is the little-known, but highly dangerous “incense”— a legal synthetic drug— is also a problem, especially with the youth.
“I was lucky not to have died from it. I guess I was meant to live so I could tell other people what I know, what happens. I got a lot of my friends to stop smoking it [incense], and I feel a lot better. But a lot of this town still smokes it,” said 17 year-old “Nicole,” whose name was changed to protect her anonymity.
Nicole is a parentless teen who has been homeless on numerous occasions and a long time smoker of cigarettes and marijuana. She said her habits started at age 9 under the influence of an older cousin.
“I smoked meth one time, but it wasn’t me doing it willingly. I found out the next day that the joint I smoked with my friend was laced with it,” she said. “As bad as it sounds, it was better than the trip that I had when I smoked the incense. That stuff seriously makes you feel like you are going to die. You feel like you are suffocating.”
Nicole said it is very scary when low priority and less threatening drugs like marijuana are laced with harder substances. But after a long run with drugs, Nicole is ready to move on. She is finishing high school this year and just got her first job. The example she sets for her younger brother and sister are very important to her.
“I’m going to have an actual job and my own place to live, and I’m going to be able to support my family,” she said. “I’m not going to have to worry about going to jail. I know I don’t have much family, but my brother and sister mean the world tome.”
