Meth use rises sharply in Cape Girardeau area

Methamphetamine already is Cape Girardeau County's most prevalent hard drug, and it's gaining in popularity.

The Cape Girardeau Police Department already has made more arrests for methamphetamine -- 22 -- in January and February of 2016 than in all of 2011. The number of arrests have steadily increased during that five-year period: 33 in 2012, 34 in 2013, 47 in 2014 and 83 in 2015,

"It's definitely going up," said Adam Glueck, Cape Girardeau Police Department public information officer. "No doubt about it."

The SEMO Missouri Drug Task Force investigated 181 cases involving methamphetamine in 2015, which include undercover buys. The task force was involved with 107 possession cases, 29 distribution cases and six manufacturing cases.

"We could buy meth every day of the week and twice on Sunday," SEMO Drug Task Force director Mark McClendon said. He added a major difference between methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine is the latter two drugs hardly ever show up in towns smaller than Cape Girardeau. "Meth is just everywhere."

Ryan Essex, chief operating officer at the Gibson Recovery Center in Cape Girardeau, reported 26 percent of the clients at the center said methamphetamine was their primary drug from July 1 through Wednesday. In the 2014-2015 fiscal year, that number was 18 percent.

By comparison, alcohol is the primary reported substance (other than clients that use multiple drugs) at 31 percent of clients. Cocaine, the closest stimulant in comparison to methamphetamine, was at 4 percent of patients. Those figures are different from 2010: 38 percent for alcohol, 10 percent for methamphetamine and 8 percent for cocaine.

"There might be a couple of reasons," Essex said of the increase of methamphetamine users. "Availability has something to do with it. Technically, you can make methamphetamine. Maybe it's because the focus isn't on methamphetamine. Eight to 10 years ago, everybody talked about it in the treatment field. As a field, we're focused on heroin overdoses. There's a greater risk of overdose with heroin."

Cape Girardeau Prosecuting Attorney Chris Limbaugh could not break down the number of possession and distribution cases by drug. His office prosecuted 279 cases of felony possession of a controlled substance and 57 felony distribution cases in 2015; 269 possession and 77 distribution cases in 2014. However, he confidently said the majority of those cases are methamphetamine and prescription pills, split about evenly. He said there are several new methamphetamine possession cases every week.

"When people are on these types of drugs, (the drugs) are so mind altering that it leads them to do things they wouldn't normally do. Plenty of our bad assault cases, driving under the influence -- I can safely tell you it's involved as a factor in plenty of other crimes."

Even the Jackson Police Department, which is dealing in much smaller numbers, saw an increase in methamphetamine-possession cases from 2014 to 2015 -- from two to four. Jackson also has had one possession case in 2016.

According to McClendon, one of the biggest changes in the way methamphetamine is distributed is the local lab is basically a thing of the past. He said there still are a few die-hard cooks (three people were busted cooking methamphetamine in December in an apartment in Cape Girardeau, for instance), but the drug primarily is imported over the Mexican border.

It would be logical methamphetamine would be more costly with these shipping restrictions and more rare. But McClendon said the price of methamphetamine is dropping, at least when buying an ounce or more. McClendon said an ounce of methamphetamine used to cost $2,200 to $2,400.

"It's staying the same at the gram amount," McClendon said. "You can get an ounce for less $1,000."

McClendon said he has not seen any slowdown of methamphetamine trafficking from the Mexican border. Often the drug is transported by a variety of vehicles on interstates. McClendon said it comes to Southeast Missouri from the south through Arkansas or north from Kansas City, Missouri, which lies on the Interstate 35 corridor.

McClendon added there is a reason for the demand from users.

"I can only tell you what I've heard -- it's a really strong high," McClendon said. "They want to revisit that high, but they'll never get back to that. ... They keep chasing it."

bkleine@semissourian.com

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