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| Announcements |
Posted by: anonymous on 05/11/2007 02:34 AM
Updated by: Ray on 06/06/2007 12:17 AM
Expires: 01/01/2012 12:00 AM
There's No Way Of Candy Coating A Startling New Trend In Peddling Methamphetamines.
I have been alerted by some friends of mine in Northern Alabama that they have received emails from emergency responder organizations to be on the lookout for a new form of Crystallized Methamphetamine that might be very attractive to children. They have relayed the warning and advised me and other emergency responders be aware of this new form if called to an emergency involving a child that seems to have symptoms of drug ingestion or overdose.
Drug dealers and users alike are calling this new form of Methamphetamine "Strawberry Quick" as it looks similar to the "Pop Rocks" candies that "sizzle" in your mouth. In it's current form, it is a dark pink in color and has a strawberry scent to it.
"They say Methamphetamine has a bitter taste so mixing it with a flavoring will help mask that bitter taste," says Ricky Phillips, head of Drug Enforcement in Marshall County AL.
My sources also tell me that this strawberry and even chocolate Flavored Methamphetamine will be well known in North Alabama by summer. Since it is colorful and has a tasty flavor, the question is will these new strategies cause an increasing possibility of getting your child hooked on this addictive drug?
A "similar" mixture was confiscated during a routine traffic stop in Marshall County just a few weeks ago. When agents tested it, they found Methamphetamine dissolved in fruit flavored punch. I've been told that my sources have seen it in other sports drinks before. That is one of the problems with some forms of drugs of abuse, they can be right under your nose and you might never know it. It can be in the car that's driving down the highway beside you and likely as not you'll never know it.
Please advise your children and their friends and other students not to accept candy from strangers as this is obviously an attempt to seduce children into drug use. They also need to be cautious in accepting candy even from friends who may have received it from someone else, thinking it is just candy.
Some of the first warnings about sweetened and flavored forms of Methamphetamine began landing in my inbox in April 2007. Unfortunately, there's a great deal of truth to these warnings: "Candied Methamphetamine" is one of the latest guises in use. The Flavored Methamphetamine drugs, first began appearing in the western states in January 2007. Nevada holds the dubious honor of being the first state in which the substance was found — its Department of Public Safety issued a bulletin about Flavored Methamphetamine seized during a 27 January 2007 search of a gang member's apartment in Carson City.
The colored crystals have since spread across the nation. According to intelligence gathered by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents from informants, users, local police, and drug counselors. Flavored Methamphetamine is available in California, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, and Minnesota. Says DEA spokesman Steve Robertson, "Drug traffickers are trying to lure in new customers, no matter what their age, by making Methamphetamine seem less dangerous."
It is not the intent of this alert to get you to believe you need only look out for "Strawberry quick" to keep your family safe. The name is reminiscent of "Strawberry Quik", a powder used to make flavored milk drinks. Yet that form of the drug is but one of many flavors in circulation: In addition to Strawberry, Crystal Methamphetamine also has been reported in Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Cola, Cherry, and Orange versions. One DEA agent reported a red Methamphetamine that had been marketed as a powdered form of an energy drink.
While it cannot be directly inferred that the flavorings have been added for the express purpose of making the drug appealing to children (it seems more likely they were incorporated as a way of combating the substance's bitter taste), it is expected that "candied" versions of Methamphetamine will nonetheless have that effect. Flavored Methamphetamine has been described as resembling "rock candy" or "Pop Rocks". Because it looks, smells, and tastes like candy, flavored Methamphetamine may fool children and teens into perceiving it as far less dangerous and addictive than it actually is. How can, after all, anything that looks that tasty and inviting be as evil as the grownups make it out to be? The new versions also present an increased risk that children who happen upon stashes of the drug will mistake their finds for candy.
In April 2007, U.S. Senators Feinstein and Grassley introduced legislation aimed at increasing the criminal penalties for anyone who markets or makes candy-flavored drugs by imposing upon them the same enhanced criminal sentences handed down to drug dealers who knowingly sell to minors. The Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act would alter federal law from its current state of requiring doubled (or tripled for a repeat offense) sentences for those caught selling illegal drugs to those under the age of 21 to imposing doubled or tripled sentences on anyone who "manufactures, creates, distributes, or possesses with intent to distribute a controlled substance that is flavored, colored, packaged or otherwise altered in a way that is designed to make it more appealing to a person under 21 years of age, or who attempts or conspires to do so." No longer would a dealer have to be caught red-handed in the act of selling to an under 21 for the doubled or tripled sentences to kick in; under the proposed refinement to current law, simply possessing flavored versions of street drugs would be enough. Also, by the lights of this rewriting of the law, manufacturers of flavored drugs would also be subject to doubled or tripled sentences.
There is one bit of good news in all this: Methamphetamine use is down for much of the country for the second year running. Researchers say it appears this latest Methamphetamine epidemic reached its peak in 2004 and 2005, and data from the federal government shows the number of first-time Methamphetamine users has steadily declined in recent years.
Let's hope that Strawberry Quick doesn't serve to reverse that trend.
There's a way you can help fight the war on Meth. If you know of a child whose life is in danger because of a Meth lab or a Meth user, call the "See Meth, Stop Meth" hotline at 1-866-303-METH.
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