The Toxicity of the City!

Evansville has a huge problem. One that’s been identified by everyone from the residents of the community to the new mayor and police chief.   Meth is that problem.     Methamphetamine, a hugely powerful home made stimulant that has seriously dangerous side effects is eating away at the underbelly of our community. The grasp of meth doesn’t exclude anyone, but most often caught in it’s grip are lower income Caucasians who have found a way to take the big mess of a large meth lab down to what’s called a ‘one pot method’ or ‘shake and bake’. That’s where the meth is created inside an empty two liter soda bottle using not-too-difficult to obtain materials such as pseudoephedrine, the drug that is commonly found in certain cold and sinus meds like Sudafed.

To gain my meth education, I sat down with Dave and Brock, two members of the recently created Meth Suppression Unit of the Evansville Police Department. This task force was created just a few months ago, and it targets not only the cooker of the drug, but also the ‘smurfers’ as they are called. ‘Smurfers’ are users who will go out and spend the entire day going to from pharmacy to pharmacy buying pseudoephedrine products and taking them back to the cooker to earn money or meth or both.   The more ‘smurfers’ a cook has, the more product he can generate. So now members of the Meth Suppression Unit will stake out local pharmacies looking for ‘smurfers’ who can possible lead them back to the person cooking up the meth.   As Dave and Brock told me, they have been part of meth lab busts here in town where they have found over 100 one pots going. Tracking ‘smurfers’ and busting meth labs is an ongoing and time consuming process for the Meth Suppression Unit. In my next installment of this series on the poison that is meth, Dave and Brock explain what they think would help stem the tide of meth in Evansville and how you can help!

Part 2 comes your way Wednesday of this week!