Methamphetamine: The homemade poison
Tennessee and Anderson County have a notable history with methamphetamine.
Within Tennessee, Anderson County had more meth lab seizures than any other county.
It was my personal belief that before I became DA they were seizing so many labs in Anderson County both because the problem was bad and because law enforcement was aggressively seeking out those home meth labs.
It is generally believed that Anderson County’s meth problem was not as different from other counties as the numbers suggested. In any event, Tennessee has had a horrible meth problem among the states and Anderson County had horrible meth problem within Tennessee.
Anderson County meth has historically been made locally using certain cold medicines and a couple of different cooking techniques.
Some of these methods present a high risk of fire and/or explosion. Years ago, Anderson County had some of these fires and at least a couple explosions.
Government finally got the upper hand.
The meth cooking techniques all shared a common raw ingredient: cold medicines containing a decongestant called pseudoephedrine.
After district attorneys recognized this opportunity, they proposed and Tennessee adopted new laws requiring that the pseudoephedrine-containing cold medicines were put behind the pharmacy counter and required an ID for purchase.
This allowed us to identify and prosecute local meth cooks and their networks of individuals that would help them buy cold medicines for making meth. In a joint operation with the DEA, Anderson County law enforcement agencies were able to put most of the local meth cooks and their support networks in prison.
As a result, the local supply of homemade meth disappeared.
Of course, attacking the homemade supply did not address the demand for meth.
Local prevention and treatment options are very limited and expensive. Adequate meth treatment takes a long time and is both difficult and rare.
So, enforcement virtually eliminated Anderson County’s homemade supply of meth, but the demand from addicts for meth was still in the community.
Dave Clark is the district attorney general of the 7th District of Tennessee – serving Anderson County.
