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NATIONAL METHAMPHETAMINE TRAINING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE CENTER
Latest news
Latest news
Latest news: 05-21-2010
Methamphetamine breath test now available
WA - The first successful breath test for amphetamine and metamphetamine was reported in the ‘Journal of Analytical Toxicology’ on May 18, 2010, by Professor Olof Beck of the Department of Medicine, Solna and at the Psychiatry Unit at the Department of Clinical Science, Karolinska Institutet (Sweden). The test subject breathes into a mask for ten minutes. Drugs in the exhaled breath are captured in a filter. The filter is analyzed using liquid chromatography and tandem mass-spectrometry. The results of the trials on people admitted to emergency rooms for amphetamine overdose correlated one hundred percent with blood and urine samples from the same person.
Huge meth-trafficking ring busted in East Texas
TX - U.S. Attorney John M. Bales announced a combined task force led by the Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division began arresting individuals charged with involvement in a methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution criminal enterprise on May 19-20, 2010 in Panola, Rusk, Gregg, Upshur, Marion, and Cherokee counties. Those arrests continued through today with agents and officers executing approximately 50 federal arrest warrants. Eighteen defendants have previously been arrested on similar charges in recent months.
Law enforcement, pharmacies crack down on meth in Vigo County, Ind.
IN - It may become harder to buy pseudoephedrine over the counter. A joint effort between law enforcement and local pharmacies may require a prescription. Police are calling it the single most addictive drug they have ever seen. "Ever since meth got here in 1999 and 2000 what we do as police officers and sheriff's deputies gotten much more intense," said Terre Haute Police Sgt. Chris Gallagher.
Now they plan to do something about it.
Rare red phosphorous meth found
KY - Wal-Mart employees called police after three men tried to buy pseudoephedrine without proper ID. Law enforcement says these men had a red phosphorous meth lab in the truck of their car, something not seen too often in this region. "We don't see red phosphorous being used as a catalyst in this area very often," said Marian Cosgrove, Owensboro Police Department. "(Most don't use it) because of the prevalence of anhydrous ammonia in this area so in the Midwest it's uncommon to see those types of labs."
Shake-and-bake method is burning its way through meth land
MO - January was a rough stretch for James Johnson*. In the span of a few cold, miserable weeks, the Sikeston resident turned 26, and lost his $9-an-hour roofing job. To cap it off, he got a new tattoo on his shoulder that he regretted almost immediately: the Monopoly man holding the components of a miniature meth lab — a lithium battery, a blowtorch and a Mason jar filled with Sudafed tablets and anhydrous ammonia. February wasn't off to a great start, either. It was snowing in southeast Missouri, and he had on just a T-shirt and a baseball cap, worn backward and pulled down to his eyebrows, to warm his wiry, five-foot-eight-inch frame. In a rush to leave the house, he forgot his winter coat. "I'd been eating Xanax that night," he notes, "so I wasn't in the right state of mind anyway."
