METHLAHOMA: How Global Trade Satisfies the Demand for Drugs

By Mitchell Gray

Methlahoma explains how the methamphetamine epidemic has adversely affected various people in Oklahoma. The opioid crisis has been well covered but the meth crisis may be worse. To better understand how a man-made drug like meth is destroying communities Methlahoma describes the history of the drug trade and how the United States uses the criminal justice system to fight the "war on drugs." Methlahoma describes how modern narcotics trafficking is related to global trade including the advent of online marketing and the use of the darknet to distribute deadly narcotics via postal and parcel services. Methlahoma contains a detailed glossary of drug terminology and a comprehensive timeline in the modern development of drugs and the governments efforts to enforce prohibition. Methlahoma also describes addiction from several perspectives ranging from those who consume narcotics, destroyed families and even how addiction is described in modern literature by a well-known novelist who fictionalized his drug life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543991543

Book preview

NOTES

PREFACE

On September 11th, a high level delegation of law enforcement officials from Alabama secretly visited a methamphetamine super lab deep in the jungle of Mexico according to the borderlandbeat online news service that reports on Mexico’s drug wars using covert sources.1 The officials were shocked at the magnitude of this lab which allegedly produced three tons of meth a week at 90 to 100% purity. In economic terms, this lab - one of dozens - earned approximately $1.5 billion per annum. A Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official stated, We have a problem with addiction in America and these major drug cartels that want to feed and fuel that problem are about nothing except for the U.S. dollars coming back.

The Alabama delegation declared a renewed interest in working with their Mexican counterparts to help dismantle these criminal organizations. The article did not describe how this can be accomplished given America’s demand for drugs and the corruption, violence and impunity in Mexico. The so-called war-on-drugs has not stemmed the flow of illegal drugs from Mexico into the United States. At the end of the day, the problem is this: America wants the drugs and Mexico wants the money.

The seized lab was located in Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s best-known and most successful drug trafficking organizations (DTO) aka, drug cartel.2 In addition to methamphetamine, the drug cartels also traffic heroin, fentanyl, marijuana and Columbian cocaine. China is the largest supplier of chemicals to make meth and fentanyl. According to Barry Matson of the Alabama Attorney General’s office, If I told you there was a multi-national organization, China, Mexico and other countries that were sending poison into this country and slowly poisoning members of your family and people all across Alabama were dying a slow and terrible death and they were also killing people immediately with that same poison, you would assume it was a terrorist organization and we needed to mobilize immediately. That’s exactly what’s happening in this country and happening right now. They don’t care, they’re making tons of money and they’re killing people.

Meanwhile in Muskogee, Oklahoma the United States Attorney for the Eastern District announced a 29 person indictment for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, other drugs and money laundering. The indictment alleges that some of the defendants transmitted, transferred and attempted to transmit and transfer funds from a place in the United States to a place outside the United States with an intent to further illegal activities. The investigation involved numerous federal state and local law enforcement agencies.

According to Tamera Cantu, IRS Special Agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office, This investigation involves drug traffickers laundering their profits through wire transfers to Mexico…today’s indictments emphasize our commitment to this role as we work alongside our law enforcement partners to protect people’s security, health and wellbeing by bringing these criminals to justice. Despite these noble interdiction efforts the demand for drugs remains high. The prospect of making large sums of money guarantees a near limitless supply of individuals willing to risk arrest or violence to supply that demand.  Mexican DTOs have mastered the logistics of narcotics smuggling and know how to manipulate supply and demand to their advantage.  Until society can do something about the demand for drugs, the criminality will increase as the bodies stack up at the local morgues across America.

INTRODUCTION

A chemical Frankenstein, torn from its chains, is stomping and rampaging up America’s interstates and highways terrorizing towns and cities with no sign of letting up anytime soon. Methamphetamine’s precursor ingredient, pseudoephedrine, is sourced in China’s clandestine laboratories and illegally shipped to Mexico.  Mexican DTO’s manage large facilities to produce super meth for export primarily to the lucrative markets in the United States.

Methamphetamine, also called ice, crank, speed, meth, and crystal is an amphetamine with central nervous system (CNS) stimulating activity. Methamphetamine, or just meth, facilitates the release of catecholamines, especially serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine from brain nerves and interfering with their uptake. This keeps the addict, or fiends, up for days at a time taxing their minds and bodies which stresses their organs while breeding hallucinations and paranoia. The good are made bad. The bad are made worse and the worst become uncontrollable monsters.

Meth is poison. Scientifically, meth is in a class of amphetamines in which the amino group of (S)-amphetamine carries a methyl substituent. According to PubChem, meth has a role as a neurotoxin, a psychotropic drug, a CNS stimulant and an environmental contaminant. It is bad news. It is a virtual act of war. Nothing good comes from meth. Only bad. If you are a parent, meth is like the mythical Greek creature Lamia who was a woman before being transformed into a child-eating monster.  Meth destroys people— ask any parent whose child became addicted to meth

This book describes how meth has affected several Oklahomans in the most insidious way. We all are born with a free will and the decision to take drugs like meth is a personal one. No crime committed excuses the personal responsibility for such a deed but knowing how meth affects the human condition, don’t we want to see it eradicated as best we can? Before I decided to focus on the meth problem I researched on the global drug trade. That information is useful so I have included it in this book. Addiction is addiction and the global supply chains for meth and other drugs are the same. It is worth mentioning that America’s criminalizing of narcotics applies equally to meth, heroin, cocaine and other drugs.

Above all, the main purpose of this book is to educate the reader about drugs and how there is no such thing as a victimless crime. Today there is a lot of political and community talk about what should be done to protect kids. Everyone fears another school shooting. But it is much more likely your child will be killed or adversely affected by drugs than by guns. If you want to protect your kids, keep them off drugs.

CHAPTER ONE

ALL IN THE FAMILY

"I am the devil and Im here to do the devil’s business.(Charles Tex" Watson)

The Ricky Ray Malone file

Ricky Ray Malone was tried by a jury and convicted of First-Degree Malice Aforethought Murder in the District Court of Comanche County, Oklahoma.3 The jury also found aggravating circumstances because Malone murdered a law enforcement officer for the purpose of evading arrest. Ricky Malone was a meth fiend and fiends do fiendish things. Fiends kill. Speed kills.

At approximately 6:20 a.m. on December 26, 2003, Abagail Robles was delivering newspapers just east of Devol, Oklahoma, a small town with approximately 150 residents near the Red River which is the border between Oklahoma and Texas. Ms. Robles’ morning routine was interrupted by the peculiar sight of a man lying in a parked car with his feet hanging outside the door. Fearing that she had discovered a corpse, Robles rushed to the house of state trooper Nik Green to tell him what she had seen. A groggy Green, a veteran trooper with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (OHP), assured Robles someone would investigate the spooky scene.

Trooper Green was not supposed to be on duty until 9:00 that morning. But when the OHP dispatch in Lawton, Oklahoma advised him the on-duty trooper was unavailable he volunteered to investigate the scene. At 6:37 a.m. Green notified dispatch he observed a white four-door vehicle and a white male. Then hell happened. Later, Malone would testify he was awakened by a flashlight and a gun in his face. When the dispatcher heard nothing further from Trooper Green she dispatched several units to make a welfare check on Green.

At 7:15 a.m. Deputy Charles Thompson, a childhood friend of Trooper Green, arrived at the scene still partially clad in night clothes. Deputy Thompson spotted Green’s patrol car parked on the right side of the road, with the driver’s side door open and the headlights on. Thompson, fearing the worst, spotted Trooper Green’s lifeless body face down in a ditch. The massive gunshot trauma to Green’s head left no doubt he was dead. Soon, the criminal investigation of Green’s murder would begin.

The investigation consisted of dash-cam video, physical evidence and statements later obtained from Malone and his associates. The officers who investigated the murder were certain someone had been manufacturing meth at the scene. Officers also found two eight balls at the scene which is a combination of meth and other drugs meant to produce a more intense high. Trooper Green must have noticed the drug activity and based on probable cause he arrested Malone.  Malone, who was free on a $50,000 bond from an arrest four days earlier, was in no mood to return to jail.4

After Trooper Green secured one wrist in handcuffs, Malone violently resisted restraint and instigated a brutal fight. Both men suffered bruises and cuts. Malone was able to retrieve a pistol loaned him by a friend and he shot Green twice in the head. Later, Green’s 9mm Glock was found at the scene but the murder weapon was never recovered. Malone’s greasy John Deer cap was found near the barbed wire fence.

Malone later bragged there was no evidence that linked him to the crime scene—the deluded thinking of a drug addict. In addition to his hat and other physical evidence, the confrontation was partially captured by the dash-cam. Malone did not realize the final desperate words of Trooper Green begging for his life and imploring the mercy of Jesus Christ was being captured as evidence. Malone, unmoved by Green’s pleas, jammed his pistol against the Trooper’s head and pulled the trigger—twice. Green Malone later told his meth buddies the gun barrel stuck to the skin of the slain trooper, and to free his gun he had to fire another round into Green’s skull.

With Trooper Green slain Malone, with a handcuff dangling from his wrist, commenced to cleaning up his meth activities by emptying containers of liquid on the ground and loading numerous items into his car. The earth absorbed Trooper Greens blood and Malone’s poisonous mixtures.  The meth fiends who execute decent human beings cannot be expected to have any concern for the environment. By 6:55 AM Ricky Ray Malone, a slave to meth, had fled the scene.

Malone’s murder trial revealed his association with four other meth-making partners including his sister. The four fiends lived in a trailer in Lawton, Oklahoma. Malone and his criminal associates were in a meth partnership assembling precursors and cooking them until good meth was made. Once their poison was produced they both consumed and distributed death to other fiends.

According to court records, Malone told his partners that he had killed an officer. When one of the gang seemed a little upset over the news of this execution, Malone soothed her by stating, don’t think of it as me killing him; think of him as an animal and I was hunting. Ricky Malone, a hunter of decent human beings, fathers, Christians and police officers. This mindset seems similar to other killers high on meth. After all, Tex Watson, Charles Manson’s chief executioner, was high on speed when he told the Polanski household, I am the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business. You can’t say they were lying!

At trial, Malone’s sister told the jury that she, Ricky and the rest of the bunch were heavily into methamphetamine in December of 2003, that methamphetamine distribution was their sole source of income, and that they were all high all the time. And paranoia happened. A decent man was executed. Poison seeped into mother earth like Trooper Greens blood—all because Ricky feared his return to jail.

Ricky testified at his trial and now he looked a little more normal because his attorney did not want the jury to see a depraved fiend high on meth who has been up for six days feeling all paranoid and itchy. Everyone has a story, even Ricky. Malone told the jury about his drug history which started with steroids to get bigger. After a football injury Ricky got hooked on Lortab. Ricky became engaged to meth in 2002, after his mother died. By 2003, meth had become Ricky’s lord and master. Sadly for Ricky, his wife had an open affair with his supervisor at the fire department. Ricky was a trained EMT and he spent a lot of time at the station with the guys who teased him for being a cuckold.

Meth and personal problems cost Ricky all his fire department and EMT jobs. A man must make a living, and Ricky began to sell meth. Ricky testified how his downward spiral into meth hell affected his life.  He told the jury he didn’t sleep from December 4 through December 26, 2003 due to being continuously amped up on meth. According to Ricky, he experienced auditory and visual hallucinations that included seeing Big Foot who was out to get him.

In the hours prior to Trooper Green’s execution, Malone testified he had been cooking some meth when he experienced voices and visions of people jumping around as he was stealing and transporting the anhydrous ammonia