Sgt. James Wingo of the Missouri State Highway Patrol narcotics bureau displays items used to manufacture methamphetamine.
SEMINOLE – Methamphetamine abuse is increasing dramatically and causing escalating crime, County Commissioner Kenneth T. Welsh said at a Jan. 25 seminar on the subject.
Welsh, who is commission chairman and head of the Pinellas County Drug Paraphernalia Task Force, spoke before 200 law officers, firefighters, EMTs and others at the C.W. Bill Young University Partnership Center at St. Petersburg College.
The seminar was sponsored by the college’s Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force.
“There are many dangers in meth abuse and meth labs,” Welsh said. “The problems cross all economic and social lines.”
Welsh said methamphetamine use is misunderstood because people are not aware of the affects. The drug can remain dormant in the body for years after use and then return with a vengeance.
He also said that the manufacturing process creates a highly dangerous and unhealthy environment.
“Producing one pound of methamphetamine creates five to seven pounds of toxic waste,” Welsh said.
Meth, available on the street for about $25 a quarter gram, attacks the central nervous system, especially the brain and spinal cord, by short-circuiting natural body functions.
Meth is snorted, injected and smoked.
Sgt. James Wingo, a 22-year veteran of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, is assigned to the narcotics bureau.
“Meth is a frightening drug,” he said. “It was not invented by the hippies of the 1960s and 1970s.”
Methamphetamine is a German drug invented in 1887. A. Ogata of Japan in 1919 created a new manufacturing method. It was first prescribed as a medication in 1932, used by Allied and Axis soldiers during World War II and over time has been legally prescribed to treat schizophrenia, narcolepsy, depression and even Parkinson’s Disease.
Airmen and ground troops have used the drug for years.
“Pilots used it to stay sharp in the cockpit,” Wingo said.
The first meth labs were developed in the early 1960s by California biker gangs. Mexican traffickers, nicknamed “Fiesta Cooks,” took over when the U.S. government made it more difficult to buy the ingredients for meth production.
“A high off methamphetamine can last eight to 12 hours as opposed to crack cocaine’s 10 to 15 minutes,” Wingo said.
Meth labs are found mainly in rural areas, in urban cities and reportedly on ships at sea.
It also has become a mom and pop cottage industry.
Studies show that meth is popular among teenagers because of the heightened mental and physical attributes it produces.
About 225 meth labs were shuttered last year in Florida.
“Nicotine is the most addictive drug,” Wingo said. “Methamphetamine is fast getting there because less than 5 percent of abusers can stop for good.”
Wingo said it takes three to five years for an abuser’s brain to normalize, and he showed before and after photographs of meth users to emphasize what the drug can do to an individual.
One picture depicted a beautiful teenager and the same child after six months of meth use. She became bird-like, pimple covered – a shell of her original self.
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