Amarillo Police Chief: Meth problem 'out of control'

It didn't take Ed Drain long in his new position as Amarillo police chief to see one of the problems the city has - methamphetamine use.

"It's out of control, quite frankly," he said.

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Until June, when he came to Amarillo as first interim chief, and now in the permanent position, Drain had been assistant chief in Plano, the suburban city of 350,000 northeast of Dallas. He exchanged one kind of drug use for another with the move.

"What's odd coming from the metroplex, and you see it more there and on the coasts, is how devastating heroin is," Drain said. "Maybe we're fortunate here in that we're not seeing a lot of heroin and LSD, but we see a lot of meth."

According to a study from the Drug Enforcement Agency's National Clandestine Laboratory Register that could target known meth labs, three of the top 11 counties in Texas were in the Panhandle.

Hutchinson County, including Borger, had 16 meth labs, while Gray County, including Pampa, had 14 labs. Potter County had 11. Out of 256 counties in Texas, the only other West Texas county in the top 11 was Ector that includes Odessa.

One other county was in East Texas, and the remaining six were in the metro areas of Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.

"When I talk about Potter County, I'm talking about everything outside the city limits, and it's nothing like it used to be say 15 to 20 years ago," said Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas. "They would have a little trailer out in the county to cook their meth.

"You hardly find anyone like that cooking meth any more. I'm sure it still goes on and is a problem, but not prevalent as far as meth labs were back then."

That study was from 2004-2012. One decline in meth labs, in addition to authorities busting them up, is the way the drug is obtained. Mexico drug cartels are finding the drug more profitable and easy to produce, Thomas said, and are smuggling larger quantities of meth into Texas and the rest of the United States.

"That's where we're seeing most of the meth," he said. "As far as selling and cooking out in the county, I'm sure there still is some, but we're not getting the reports like we used to, like there's this house where a car is coming and going every five minutes for 24 hours a day.

"But is it a problem? Oh, yeah, I would say it's a huge problem."

Both Drain and Thomas, each asked independently, estimated 75 to 80 percent of the local burglaries are connected to meth addicts. Car and home burglaries, and the more violent crimes of armed robbery, often have a connection to meth and the need for money.

"Most meth addicts, they don't work, can't hold down a full-time job, so how are they going to pay for their habit?" said Tony Rodriguez, 45, a former addict for eight years who now heads Final Hope Ministry, which reaches out to those with substance abuse problems.

"When they see someone, the first thought is, 'What can I get from this person?'" Rodriguez said. "So whether it's theft or looking you square in the eye and lying to you, they're going to try to get something from you."

Rodriguez says an addict will use about a gram of meth a day with a street value of $100. Thomas estimates it may be as high as $150 daily.

"Do you have a job that you can afford $150 a day to spend on? I sure don't," Thomas said. "I talk to homeowners groups as we get close to summer. You might be weedeating your front yard, and put it down for a few minutes to go to the back yard and come back and it's gone. Somebody stole it and might get $10 for it."

Rodriguez, who began using meth in 2005 after going through a marriage breakup, has been totally clean for five years.

"It's been a while since I've been in it, but it's gotten worse," he said. "It's not the everyday addict walking down the street, but it's also a lot of professionals. I think society is just kind of accepting to it, or at least numb or blind to it."

Drain said he can drive in the San Jacinto neighborhood and see the effects meth is having in that area.

"It's just tragic," he said. "Many people are like ghosts out there. You see them in convenience stores and walking up and down the street. I mean, this is where it's going to lead you. There is not another road. This is not going to be a happy ending. You're going to be homeless, broke, sores on your face and teeth falling out. 'Why start this?' is the message we got to get young folks to realize."

What, if anything, can be done is the dilemma. Rodriguez has some ideas, and wants to meet with law enforcement. But this much is clear to Drain:

"We cannot arrest our way out of this," he said. "That's not going to solve the problem."