Speed Demons

Psychologically more destructive than heroin--and now more available than marijuana--amphetamines are in many ways the most treacherous of all abused drugs. Despite the threat they pose, a recent survey by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs revealed that 92% of the speed and pep pills in illicit traffic were manufactured by legitimate U.S. drug firms.

At hearings in San Francisco last week, the House Select Committee to Investigate Crime began to probe the route of amphetamines from manufacturers to the streets. There emerged a frightening pattern of ineffective federal regulation, corporate negligence and complicity on the part of some drug firms that profit from the illegal trade.

Cranked Out. An estimated 8 billion amphetamine pills are produced each year in the U.S. Federal officials estimate that no more than half this production is routinely dispensed by medical prescription. Much of the remainder is diverted to criminal channels by loss, theft and misdirected shipments. Said Committee Chairman Claude Pepper: "It is alarming that more than half of the stimulant and depressant drugs are articles of llicit drug traffic."

Pill City. Some drug companies make little effort to verify the legitimacy of customers who order amphetamines. As a test, Government investigators set up a fictitious company in the Midwest and received without question nearly every drug ordered from manufacturers. Michael Sonnenreich, deputy counsel of the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs, said that firms do not deliberately promote illicit traffic, but "there are so many loopholes in the existing drug abuse laws. Companies crank out enormous volumes of drugs, and they sell them to anybody who appears to be legitimate."

A congressional investigator charged that 60% of the amphetamine pills exported to Mexico return to the U.S. via illegal channels. The movement of American amphetamines through Tijuana has prompted Mexican customs officials to call it "pill city." Donald Rice, a former large-scale drug distributor, told the committee of the ease with which large quantities of amphetamines could be purchased in Mexico and smuggled back into the U.S. Rice admitted making $60,000 a year in amphetamines and said that he could not see "how U.S. manufacturers can send large amounts to small drugstores without knowing that illegitimate business is involved." Another retired speed entrepreneur testified that he easily obtained the ingredients for making amphetamines from wholesale chemical companies.

Committee Chairman Pepper plans to press for legislation to limit exports and imports, to restrict sales of amphetamine ingredients, and to regulate the sale of drugmaking machinery. The committee will ask for limitation of drug production, based on medical need, and will suggest a ban on a variety of amphetamines, the dangers of which outweigh their legitimate uses. If Pepper succeeds, there will perhaps be no further shipments like the one by a U.S. company to a nonexistent street number that turned out to be the eleventh hole of a Mexican golf course. There Mexican smugglers picked up the goods for sale north of the border.

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