A Baltimore love thing

Transcription

1 Michael Cashman, senior law enforcement instructor at Network Environmental Systems, tells Gwyn Winfield about the next generation of drugs and the challenges they pose A Baltimore love thing It s always tempting to run to the old adage, the more things change the more they stay the same (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose), yet sometimes things change and don t stay the same. An example of that would be the current trends in drug detection. For many years drug detection was analogous to chemical warfare agents, you had a few well known agents (heroin, cocaine, etc) and you could live with very simple yet effective detectors. Even with the introduction of narcotics such as MDMA aka ecstasy, and methamphetamine (or meth) there was a known stable of agents. It would be hard to single out a reason why the market has changed, but improved interdiction is certainly part of it, recently, however, the market has exploded. As well as synthetic heroin, also known as fentanyl, there are the so called legal highs. Just naming these drugs ages the article terribly. These narcotics can change monthly, but go under such soubriquets as bath salts, K2 and spice. The chemicals involved in these agents are protean, no sooner does a drug enforcement agency clamp down on one than another springs up. Indeed it would be wrong to suggest there is an antagonistic measure counter measure process - the chemicals in the drugs shift as frequently as the names and the packaging. It requires little legal stimulus for this to happen. Indeed it is the difficulty in picking up on the recipes that allows these drugs to sit in the grey area of legal highs. No sooner is one outlawed than another slightly similar version appears. Currently the makers are aiming at reproducing the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) high found in marijuana, yet (probably because a lot of these chemicals are not cleared for inhalation/ingestion by humans) they can have alarming side effects. Since many of them are made in China, though homegrown labs are appearing, they often remain only a bulk detection challenge to law enforcement officials and a health hazard to those that take them. In addition to the novel drugs fentanyl, MDMA and meth labs also remain a challenge. As the government shuts down one narcotic precursor the cooks (some of them might even be properly described as chemists) shift to another method, needing to synthesise different raw ingredients and fine tuning the product, if not their health and safety and common sense requirements. As the final icing on the cake comes the black market trade in contraband chemicals on the dark web; need pseudoephedrine? No worries, I ll swap you some for some TATP. Michael Cashman has 23 years experience of working Clandestine drug laboratories (clan labs) for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and 2 years of teaching for NES and sees the present as one of the most dangerous periods he has known. I got out of the Marine Corps in 1991 and after DEA academy I went to San Diego and came in at the tail end of the P2P [1-phenyl-2- propanone, even hip with the kids! Ed.] meth labs. I watched it change with the tweakers, or the mom and pop chemists, and evolve into Mexican National Drug Trafficking Organizations doing multi-22 litre reaction vessels manufacturing anywhere between 100 and 200lbs of meth at a time. I also saw my first synthetic heroin lab in When I look at how we raided that then compared to now, we were lucky not to lose anyone. We didn t have a hazmat team in attendance and with the equipment we used we were lucky with our mistakes. Sadly a lot of these old time investigators came down with medical issues later on in life. During my time at the Clan Lab unit located at the FBI DEA academy, I watched meth labs change from red phosphorous to anhydrous ammonia, also called Nazi labs, where they used ammonia to manufacture meth through the reduction method, and also black iodine which is another red phosphorous method. I was then assigned to Boston, where there are a lot of universities with numerous exotic club drugs, from MDMA to the 2Cs, GHB, 2CT7 [a psychedelic phenethylamine Ed.], using much of Dr Alexander Shulgin s book Pikhal. When the internet hit we would see plenty of club drugs based on his books. We even saw some Quaalude labs. In the past few years we saw the seizure of Siegfried synthetic fentanyl labs, MDMA, DMT [dimenthyltryptamine another hallucinogen. Ed.] labs, a lot of bizarre stuff and then the stuff that we don t know what it is, like bath salts and spice labs. My biggest fear is fentanyl. The 34 CBRNe WORLD October

2 You see one of these outside your house and you are in for a bad day... Cashman New England Clandestine Laboratory group led by the DEA seized 25kg of synthetic heroin at a heroin pill mill where they break down the fentanyl for distribution. This is a level A response and DEA have built a task force in New England that works to address these issues. Even so, it is not just drugs they make, but everything connected to them. So guys will sell the explosive TATP via the dark web in order to buy the chemicals needed to make MDMA. We did not have this problem 25 years ago, now they get chemicals from China to make stuff I do not recognise, we get VOC hits on substances and I don t know what they are. It keeps changing and now we will have an entire generation of law and fire officers who will have been exposed to these bath salts and spice and we have no idea what the physiological effects could be. They could start to come down with exotic cancers and illnesses in the future. It is not just the detection but also the personal protective equipment (PPE) that has to evolve. We now wear flash fire suits when we process a one pot lab and use self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) as if that one pot flashes in your face you will get severe respiratory burns along with third degree burns on your body if you are not equipped with proper PPE. If you are not taped up properly you could get flaming lithium metal from a one pot explosion to the side of the head. It is just crazy! Methamphetamine is still a popular choice - the budget supermarket of narcotics. While large scale production remains complicated small quantities for personal consumption, called one pot meth, seem devilishly easy to make, but like home-made explosives production can go quickly, and dramatically, wrong. The internet is littered with stories of people creating meth in unlikely places, such as toilets, tents and underpants ( com/story/news/crime/2015/03/17/walmart-oddest-place-find-methlab/ /) and it is equally common to find these stories without happy endings. Despite the surge in synthetic opioids and novel drugs meth labs are the most common type of clan lab. Clandestine Methamphetamine Labs, 2nd Edition ( problems/meth_labs/) reckons that meth labs make up 90% of the clan labs, though these can differ enormously in the chemistry present and professionalism of the cook. Approximately three to six cooks die every year from explosions or fire (not including other workplace hazards like being shot or beaten to death by rival gangs). One in every five labs is discovered when it explodes and of those cooks surveyed one in four had experienced a fire (clearly some have worked out fire suppression!). While superlabs may account for 80% of all the meth on the street they tend to have far higher standards of health and safety compared to the one pot cooks who not only tend to be unstable users of meth, but also employ an intrinsically unsafe method. October 2015 CBRNe WORLD 35

3 A Baltimore love thing Michael Cashman explained: Busting meth labs calls for the highest level of respiratory protection. When I started in the business they manufactured with the P2P or the red phosphorous method, in one location, and they might recrystallize it outside [which reduces the risk of explosion. Ed]. With a one pot you might have three rolling one pots and 300 used one pots, which are just as deadly, in the house or garbage. Not only must you constantly monitor the air but you may need a thermal camera to find any hidden one pots. I would rather deal with a hotel room full phosphine gas that incapacitated the meth cooks than a one pot lab. As soon as you touch a one pot lab they can start regenerating, so for transporting them outside you all need to be on SCBA with thermapro or Kappler Flash suits, have safety standby set up, perimeter security, air monitoring, the whole response. It would be tempting to suggest that as the current trend in drug use moves into spice and bath salts clan labs are leaving the highly dangerous meth production business. Indeed the DEA s log of incidents has seen (largely) a year on year reduction in meth incidents ( But Michael Cashman disagrees: We are losing an entire generation of investigators who grew up doing down and dirty chemical lab investigations. This is partly because we are seeing a law enforcement focus moving out of meth labs to prescription drugs. We have such an opiate problem here in the states that we are seeing Sheriffs and Police Chiefs moving from meth labs investigations to Heroin and Opiate cases. They say numbers are going down, but I think this is a change from management to address the opiate problems, the meth labs are still there as it is too easy to make. I spoke to a drug dealer and asked why are you cooking meth? He replied: I don t have to go Lawrence or meet any drug dealers, I can make it myself. Lawrence is a mill town in MA where the heroin comes from, and he can make it himself, doesn t need to meet any dangerous people and get high. It can be made with common household chemicals. I can fit everything I need to make meth in my front pocket, and I can sell 2g of meth that s made from a $10.99 bottle of cold medicine for $ It is all too easy. The other easy drug that likes to go bang is hash oil (see CBRNe World February 2015), though in this case it is the butane rather than the chemical reaction that causes the explosion. Mr Cashman s concern is that with the greying out of DEA agents who have been through the last 20 years of clan labs, and the focus shifting to prescription drugs, experience is being lost, which could put lives at risk. It is not all bad, however, as he stated that taskforces like the one that he been involved with in New England are able to share experiences and expertise. We are losing a lot of the old time DEA experience. We have shifted from let s go steal the bad guy s trash and see whether he has a meth lab in there based on purchases and surveillance. Investigators are now doing wire taps, pole cameras, traces on cars, and we just don t have the experience of meth labs that we had when I joined. I am proud of the New England Clan Lab team. They do a hell of a job of investigating and dismantling Drug laboratories. They get great support from DEA HDTRS and training from DEA Quantico to accomplish their mission. There used to be a lot of great DEA agents and State and local officers with Clan Lab experience around the United States, we had great training and equipped a lot of states and local clan lab teams That meant I could grab a chemist and ask him or her whether he wanted to come on lab raid and they would say absolutely, because they were interested. It was also vice versa they would call Agents if they had an unusual lab and we would respond to take a look at it. There are a few dinosaurs out there still, but we lack the cadre. The DEA and law enforcement has to stay on top of the new and upcoming labs, especially with synthetics. We don t know what we will see in five years; did we think five years ago that we would be dealing with synthetic heroin labs? Absolutely not, we might see a fentanyl lab attached to a university but not very often. Did I think we would see tryptamine labs? Absolutely not, and in five years who knows what they will be making. In terms of the taskforce, traditionally when you raided meth you had a lab team/group, they might call the fire department if they needed to, but they would raid the lab and get a clean up company in to remove the hazardous waste. In New England they started the task force program because we realized that we couldn t do it ourselves with the advent of the One pot meth labs and other Clandestine drug laboratories. We use state, local and federal law people as an augmented team, we trained together, and were issued with specialized equipment like nomex suits and gloves, a respirator and SCBA. As a federal agent I would coordinate the deployment of the team. A captain from the local police department would provide backup as the site safety and help coordinate in getting the tactical entry team, the evidence collection team, forensic chemists and the law enforcement officer get the warrant for the lab entry. I d call the chemists assigned to our team, they d provide expertise on the hazards associated with lab and also will be on scene to help process the laboratory, and finally arson investigators and fire Marshals from the fire marshals office would help to provide liaison with the local fire departments and EMS services. A majority of our teams have full time EOD personnel who have years of experience that can be put towards neutralizing one pot laboratories with training in water charges and robots. They have provided robotic support to move one pot meth labs from a residence to a save location for processing. The use of robots to conduct a hazardous lab assessment is a force multiplier If we respond and find an explosive ordnance device (EOD) element or WMD laboratory at the location, you swap out DEA, bring in FBI or the Bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives (BATFE) to handle the situation. All this means you have to train together and know each other s capabilities. There are some locals that I 36 CBRNe WORLD October

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5 A Baltimore love thing would rather work with than agents who have no lab experience, the locals have that lab experience, they get down and dirty and will find the labs and do what they have to do. We organized a Federal investigation to target Clan Lab cooks, we can help pay for overtime, get the state and local investigators cross sworn as federal agents, this was a force multiplier for DEA. We would work in rural locations where there was no cell service but it didn t matter as I had everyone I needed right there and we could deal with it quickly. Things are improving on the equipment front at least. Mr Cashman highlighted the work of companies like BW Tek, and Thermo Fisher Scientific in terms of getting some of the new compounds into the libraries, but it does seem that not enough crosscutting research is being done. There is a good chance that civil support teams, as well as other international responders, will come into contact with various next generation narcotics labs and not understand the threat that they pose. Indeed it would be interesting to see how much long term health effect work has been done on some of these chemicals. The phosphine payouts to those police and fire officials are a great example of this. A case in point, in a four year period out of nearly 850 injuries related to meth labs over half were to police officers (Acute Public Health Consequences of Metham-phetamine Laboratories, CDC). It has also been assumed that many that will suffer from some form of respiratory problems ( nih.gov/ pubmed/ ) in the future due to not following the correct respiratory protection procedure. In the old days it was more likely for concentrations of the precursors of the various drugs to be studied in depth, but rapid switching from one chemical to another now makes such a comprehensive approach unlikely. Equally the labs can regularly have explosive precursors, there is some commonality between the two. Toxins like ricin are of interest to the same people for resale as are radiological substances, as thorium and uranyl nitrate are both used in the P2P method. This rich mix of substances encourages a taskforce approach, but it also raises concerns for those areas that don t follow it as the chances of people coming across a substance that could have long term negative health effects is quite high. Many police forces with a CBRN cadre are wondering what they should do with individuals who are highly trained in the detection of esoteric substances; they would do well to update their detector libraries and start looking at next generation narcotics. Now, let's see whether this is in the library. Narcotics detectors need frequent library updates Thermo Scientific 38 CBRNe WORLD October