Transcripts

JEFF HORWICH: Think about the images, the news stories you've seen about meth in this state. Imagine the tubes and vats among the broken furniture and filth of a rundown shack in the country. Think of the haggard, sleepless meth cook dumping hazardous waste down the kitchen sink. Then, think again. Sure these places exist, state officials found more than 400 mini meth labs last year, but they are not the heart of the Minnesota meth supply.

The Twin Cities is. Think of it as a meth depot. 80% of our meth comes from out of state, smuggled in delivery trucks and hollowed out car bumpers. After changing hands here, much of it leaves again for the suburbs, Indian reservations, and small towns, where meth ruins lives. Tim Counts is a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the many law enforcement agencies trying to choke off the meth pipeline to the Twin Cities.

TIM COUNTS: Our agents say that this is a trend shipment point in the upper Midwest. Some of it is headed for Chicago, areas out East, they think, some of it is even headed for Canada. So they definitely see this as not only a place for end users, but also as a transit point.

JEFF HORWICH: A particular map of the US, normally available only to law enforcement, is a good illustration. It shows two major meth trafficking bands stretching across the country. A yellow band rises up from Mexico through Texas and the Grain Belt. A pink one reaches from Southern California and Northeast, through Colorado. Pink and yellow meet in the Twin Cities.

JEFF MILLER: I think it'd be unrealistic to say that law enforcement has a real good idea of how much is coming in. We certainly don't intercept the majority of it.

JEFF HORWICH: Sergeant Jeff Miller works on the narcotics unit of the Minneapolis Police. He says, if anything, the era of the isolated rural meth lab is waning. The health hazards are too great, the risk of capture is rising. So-called super labs in the Southwest and Mexico can churn out 10 pounds of meth in a day, compared with the few grams painstakingly produced in a mini lab. Miller says this mass produced meth that arrives here is cheap. That doesn't mean the street prices are falling. Addicts, after all, are willing to pay what it takes. What it does mean is big money for a thriving network of middlemen.

JEFF MILLER: There's huge profits to be made. I think at most of the steps or many of the steps the methamphetamine can be reduced in purity or cut, as we say, and so you can essentially double your money

JEFF HORWICH: Anything from powdered vitamin C to scouring powder or fiberglass can invisibly dilute snortable powdered methamphetamine. Some middlemen cook the powder into crystals, the smokable form of meth. Then the distribution networks kick in. Essentially, the dealers for the dealers.

JEFF MILLER: The shipment is broken up into a number of smaller shipments, and these are turned over to, they could be Black street gangs, it could be White motorcycle gangs, it could be independent entrepreneurs that are out there doing this business.

JEFF HORWICH: In November, the head of the Minnesota Hell's Angels began a 17-year federal prison sentence. Investigators say Patrick Matter ran a meth distribution ring out of his North Minneapolis motorcycle shop. Miller says another investigation still unfolding has netted a dozen people this spring. They include the Mexican nationals who brought the drugs here. The trail has also led to a Minneapolis bar, some associates in Saint Paul, and a storage location in Forest Lake where 40 pounds of meth were recovered.

An occasional big bust like this doesn't mean Miller is encouraged. Budget cuts have brought the Minneapolis narcotics unit from 16 officers in 2001, to 11 today. Their meth seizures were down 70% last year, even as meth activity is on the rise. And the unit has other things on their plate, namely cocaine and crack cocaine, where street dealing and guns can create their own more pressing problems.

To a narcotics officer, the Twin Cities meth scene is mostly about the business, the trade, the supply feeding the rest of the state. This can overshadow the fact that meth addiction affects thousands of lives here. In 2003, more than 1,700 residents of the Seven County Metro received treatment for meth, 44% of all meth cases statewide.

SPEAKER 1: 20 years ago, I'd say, back then they called it crank, and I used to just snort it back then. But I'd say within about the last three years on and off, I've been mixed in with the really high grade, the fluff.

JEFF HORWICH: This is Susan 38-years-old, a Minneapolis stay-at-home mom. Or she was, until child protection took her three children and charged her with endangerment.

SPEAKER 1: Water being turned off, our house practically going into foreclosure, and my children, as much as I hid it from them, I mean they'd notice differences. Like I'd be up really late at night, they'd get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom or something, and I'd still be up doing stuff.

JEFF HORWICH: In April, she checked into a halfway house for treatment. Susan is not her real name. She says meth makes people paranoid and angry, and it's better her former associates don't know she's telling her story. In the past year, Susan and her then husband began cooking their own meth with friends. One chore involved buying or shoplifting the ingredients, drain cleaner, Sudafed, fertilizer, from local stores.

SPEAKER 1: Menards or hardware stores for some of it. The pseudoephedrine just from Walgreens or Rainbow. You couldn't get your whole supply from one place. You had to hit like a couple of Walgreens or couple of Rainbows, just so you wouldn't draw attention to yourself.

JEFF HORWICH: Susan says she took care of herself, using in small amounts and forcing herself to eat-- an oversight that leaves some meth addicts looking emaciated. She says many addicts in the Twin Cities are like her, hard to spot.

SPEAKER 1: Some people just seem like they're high energy. They don't exhibit the typical signs of meth use like anorexic looking, bad teeth, that type of thing. Some people are able to function to the outside world as regular people.

JEFF HORWICH: Susan is White, so were more than 90% of those who got meth treatment in the Twin Cities last year. But the drug's appeal is growing. 3% of those users were Hispanic. And earlier this year, Warmeng Moua profiled young crystal meth addicts in his Saint Paul-based newspaper, Hmong Today.

WARMENG MOUA: They would call it, [NON-ENGLISH], which means rock, [NON-ENGLISH], which means candy, gyeongjong, which is the good stuff.

JEFF HORWICH: Moua says young people use meth to stay up and party through the night. Hmong girls use it to lose weight. Street gangs deal it to make money. And Moya says meth is a common thread in recent crimes that have put the community in the news.

WARMENG MOUA: One of the reasons why we started looking into crystal meth is because you would read Hmong pimps with adolescent girls. And so we looked further into it and found out yeah, in almost every case of prostitution within the Hmong community, crystal meth is the drug that they lure these girls into with.

JEFF HORWICH: Moua says Hmong community reaction to the newspaper story has been harsh.

WARMENG MOUA: I definitely think that the community has to look at it and say, I got a niece who's on it, I got a brother who's on it, I got a cousin, my daughter, they're on it, and I need help. I don't think they understand how powerful that drug is, how destructive it actually is.

JEFF HORWICH: The Hmong are another example of the meth reality that plays against stereotype. New ethnic communities being affected, a lot of urban meth addicts, and the Twin Cities pipeline of cheap Mexican stuff that actually feeds the Minnesota habit. That's not the meth we thought we knew. I'm Jeff Horwich, Minnesota Public Radio.