Kansas City Star, MO
10-21-06
Scientists join fight against meth
Chemists find an additive that makes fertilizer less potent for drugmakers, which
could curb thefts.
By JOHN SHULTZ
The Kansas City Star
Life is getting harder for the small-time meth cook.
State and federal lawmakers spent the past few years making it more difficult for
them to obtain common cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, a key
methamphetamine ingredient.
Now, two Iowa State University scientists may have taken another meth
component out of play.
The chemists found that the popular anhydrous ammonia fertilizer often siphoned
by meth cooks could be rendered virtually useless to them by adding a small
amount of another fertilizer, calcium nitrate. Iowa announced a voluntary program
for agricultural retailers last week.
Iowa officials hope the additive will catch on. In Kansas and Missouri, authorities
and retail industry representatives plan to wait and see. Though intrigued, they
say it’s too soon to call whether calcium nitrate will be embraced locally, and too
early to tell its effect.
Dale Woolery, associate director of the Iowa governor’s Office of Drug Control
Policy, said calcium nitrate won’t eliminate the region’s meth trade, which is
increasingly fueled by imported product, particularly from Mexico.
“But it will further free up resources to deal with that,” Woolery said.
Though clandestine labs are declining, the vast majority in Iowa relied on that
state’s plentiful tanks of anhydrous ammonia used for corn production, according
to Iowa authorities.
The additive’s effect was discovered by chemists working on a federally funded
project.
John Verkade, one of the chemists, said that a cook who tries to use the
treated fertilizer will get far less meth out of a batch of pseudoephedrine than he
would have otherwise — only a 2 percent yield instead of the expected 40
percent. And the additive has shown no ill-effects on production.
Iowa authorities hope to use it strategically, treating some tanks in hard-hit areas.
They hope that it will frustrate the cooks.
In Kansas and Missouri, officials say, a limited approach may be the only way the
additive catches on. Geography may determine whether it has an effect on a
specific area’s meth trade.
Much of the meth produced in the Kansas City area is made using the Red P
method, which eschews anhydrous ammonia in favor of red phosphate and
iodine, said Sgt. Jason Clark of the Missouri Highway Patrol.
He said the calcium nitrate would be most useful in northern Missouri, which
accounted for 168 of the state’s 186 reported anhydrous thefts this year. The
fertilizer tanks are more plentiful there.
But both states still use plenty of the fertilizer. Kansas retailers sold 235,000 tons
last year. Missouri retailers sold 140,000 tons.
Clark and Kyle Smith of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation note that restricting
the sale of pseudoephedrine, the only key ingredient in all meth production, is still
the most effective approach to combating labs.
Smith said law enforcement in Kansas is watching the additive closely.
Authorities hope that the market will decide for itself if it is needed, he said.
Duane Simpson, with the Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association, said that
not counting a current spike, anhydrous thefts reported by his group’s members
have plummeted since the pseudoephedrine sales restrictions began.
Still, Simpson said, an anhydrous theft can be pricey. A Kansas retailer last year
lost 81 tons in one theft, at a cost of between $400 and $800 a ton.
“Typically, the amount of anhydrous ammonia that you need to make meth is
very, very little,” said Simpson. “The problem is meth cooks aren’t usually very
polite. They don’t always turn off the valve.”
Authorities in Iowa think it will cost retailers about $24 for a typical tank, which
would likely have to be treated twice a year. A year’s treatment would cost a few
dollars more than a standard tank lock.
John Whipple, with the Iowa Department of Agriculture, said that for frequently hit
retailers, the treatment may be best.
Whether that cost will be passed to growers remains to be determined. One
projection — assuming Iowa’s entire stockpile of anhydrous is treated — puts the
cost at about $1 an acre.
That figure would likely make Missouri growers balk, said Amy Meyer, of the
Missouri Farmers Union.
“Most farmers would be very supportive of it so long as there’s no increase in
costs,” she said.
Meyer noted that Missouri flirted with another anhydrous additive, and that costs
were one of the reasons it failed to catch on. Last year the state was considering
offering tax breaks for farmers who used GloTell, an eco-friendly dye that would
stain anyone pink who came in contact with the anhydrous.
Jerry Boettcher, of retailer Boettcher enterprises in Beloit, Kan., said the calcium
nitrate shows more promise than GloTell, but “if they just leave it up to the retailer
and there’s a cost involved, some retailers will, some retailers won’t. … That’s
going to be a problem in getting this done consistently, because why should we
do this for nothing?”
To reach John Shultz, call (816) 234-4427 or send e-mail to jshultz@kcstar.com.