As I was reviewing the story log for this summer, sipping hot coffee from my trusty mug, the little neurons in my brain took the caffeine jolt and one of them skipped up and popped on a light bulb for me. My bright ideas and revelations are few and far between, so this one of course, just had to be shared.
If you review the summer headlines so far, it might hit you that there has been a string of small busts involving illegal methamphetamine dealers and cookers. Yes, the little and lethal dose of speed has come back from its near-demise after the 60’s in a big way. Today you’ll hear it called, “crystal,” “crank,” “tweak,” “go-fast,” “ice,” “meth,” and dozens of other names referring to either its jolt or the way someone smokes, injects, swallows or snorts the drug.
Crank has been in the county for a while, you can read the crime log and confirm it, but the light bulb went on realizing how perfect an area we have for the cookers. More often than not meth is cooked up in make shift labs using a homemade chemistry set and a lot of over the counter or industrial chemicals. It’s a dangerous process in every thinkable way. These “Junkyard Wars” reject projects are often put on wheels to look similar to large grill cookers and have been known to explode with incredible force. The by-products left over after a cook are toxic and require hazmat gear and these are not folks who will be taking time to safely dispose of their waste. It gets dumped.
If you were looking to avoid the law enforcement crackdowns of Florida and the West Coast, where better to set up shop than Sevier County?
The bike gangs that law enforcement attributes to running most meth in the U.S. would find this a nice new home sweet home. We have so many visitors going in and out that it’s very easy to blend in with the tourist scene. A few well-placed dollars in classic cars and distributing out through the rod run cover could go unnoticed for years. Bringing supplies in, who notices another pick up truck here?
Need to move around a lot to cook and dump? How many lonely rental cabins and campgrounds are there to choose from around the area? Pull a mile up in the woods to cook and tell anyone who asks where you walk each day that you like to hike on vacation. The local police forces are good, but are undermanned to cover all the hollows and valleys on the back roads, especially if you avoid being in city limits.
Plus, there is central distribution to half the East Coast within a day and no alligators to worry about like Florida. If an organized group had moved in, how would we know? There might be a few tell tale signs, rumors and that sort of thing, might even be some tipping off of local police about small time rivals for the local meth trade. After all, you wouldn’t want amateurs bringing unwanted attention and searches for the mobile labs. Which has me wondering, have Sheriff Montgomery and the boys been nipping things in the bud with their Kodak busts or is there a bigger problem quietly cooking away?
I limit my speed rush to what comes out of a pot of coffee in the morning, not everyone does. Some make money off of that, a lot of money. But for the ones who use or think about it one night, there is no big mystery as to why you don’t hear much about old speed freaks, they didn’t live long enough to get old. Coffee freaks, I understand we turn into the crabby old lady on the Hallmark cards.

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