Nevada's Drug Culture Extends

To Europe, Middle East, Beyond

Meth Is Homegrown, Ecstasy Comes From

Europe, Delivered By Israelis, Others

by Johnny Gunn

One thing a visitor will find in Nevada is money, lots of money, free-flowing cash by the ton, and that also allows for virtually unlimited potential for money-laundering, the process by which cash that is tainted by some illegal activity is exchanged for money that isn't.

There are federal and state laws designed to impede money laundering, but they are seriously ineffective in Nevada.  Recently one of the largest gaming operations in Las Vegas was fined a considerable amount of cash for not following the rules, but in the meantime, just how much money was exchanged?

Casinos are filled with cash; table games are played with chips.  Go to the cashier's cage and exchange mountains of cash for chips.  Go back a few hours later and exchange a mountain of chips for cash.  Did you play any of the table games?  No one will ask.  And it's this ease of operation that brings every type of illegal operative to the Silver State.  In particular, drug dealers.  Drugs are purchased with cash and that cash needs a means of proving itself untainted.  A casino cage is often the only answer.

This is the first in what will be a continuing series on Nevada's Drug Culture, and the war being waged to bring the problem under some kind of control.  By the end of the series, we hope you'll have a much broader idea of just how invasive the problem is, and just how many people have been destroyed by illegal drugs.

Methamphetamine

In the big cities and the rural areas of Nevada, the drug of choice today is probably crank, meth, speed -- by whatever name you choose, slow death.  Methamphetamine is relatively easy to manufacture.  As one narcotics officer put it, "you don't have to be a chemist, what you have to be is a shopper."  Crank can be put together in your kitchen, bathroom, garage, basement, anywhere, and the ingredients are available at just about any major shopping center.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says recipes for making the stuff are available on hundreds of Internet sites, and according to DEA agent Michael Heald, "cold and allergy medicines are available everywhere."  Those medicines contain ephedrine or pseudoephedrine; both used in the building of the stuff.  You've probably heard the word ephedrine used in some cold and allergy medicine commercials.

Major methamphetamine manufacturing plants have been moving to Mexico because of DEA pressure in this country, but what that has done is force users and sellers to become manufacturers themselves.  Not major distributors, but small time, making the chemical available on the local market. According to Attorney General Brian Sandoval, in Nevada these drug makers are moving into rural areas to do their work.

Two major methamphetamine labs have been shut down in Storey County, one actually blown to bits, and Sandoval believes the manufacturing of drugs in small counties relates to the amount of law enforcement that is available there.  John Walters, Director of the National Drug Control Policy agrees, and says his agency is trying to funnel money and supplies to police agencies in rural counties to fight the war.

Walters recently announced a grant of $725,000 to anti-drug coalitions throughout Nevada, including a grant to tiny little Storey County.  Small counties don't have the police or financial resources to fight this kind of war.  According to the latest figures available, 125 meth labs were found and neutralized in Nevada in 2003.  No one is willing to take a guess at how many are operating as you read this report.

One answer that is being looked at is changing the laws on cold medicines, making those that contain the active ingredients for meth to be available only through prescription.  Walters says getting cold and allergy medicines off the shelf will slow the manufacture of speed considerably.  By having to purchase by way of a prescription, large amounts of cold and allergy medicine cannot be gotten easily, he said.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy is often referred to as a date rape drug in that it incapacitates its user, but according to Las Vegas police, the drug is used heavily in the night club scene in Sin City.  The DEA believes the drug is smuggled in by Israelis who have a clamp on the drug.

Most ecstasy in this country is manufactured in Belgium and Israeli criminal gangs have taken over the manufacture and distribution of the drug.  According to both the DEA and Las Vegas police authorities, Las Vegas is one of the major hubs of distribution in this country.  Indictments have been handed down, but the flow of the drug continues unabated according to police.

According to published reports emanating from Las Vegas, Israeli mobsters in the city have tied themselves to a number of night club owners and operators for distribution purposes.  Police and DEA agents also say the Israeli gangsters are also engaged in other criminal activity such as extortion and the protection racket.

Several nightclubs in Las Vegas are currently under federal investigation for illegal activities including murder, drug dealing, extortion, and other activities.  According to columnist Steve Miller, the big story of 2005 will involve several strip clubs.  Miller believes that mobster Mike Galardi, already under indictment for extortion and bribery of Clark County Commissioners and former commissioners, has been telling all to federal investigators, and may already have incriminated fellow strip club owner Rick Rizzolo and some of the operations at his Crazy Horse Too bar.

Galardi has said he paid bribes to elected officials.  Miller believes he may also be implicating others in southern Nevada including judges, cops, and possibly land developers.  For more on this, click here.  http://www.stevemiller4lasvegas.com/RickRizzolo.html.

How all this ties in with the Israeli gangs isn't known right now, but the local gangsters and the international gangsters are being investigated by the same intelligence and police agencies.  There is some indication that ecstasy smuggling will move from the major European center in Antwerp to somewhere in Latin America.  If that happens, say DEA agents, distribution networks already in place from Latin America would probably be used in place of the International Israeli gangs.

Drugs, money, politicians, gangsters.  Things don't change the more they change.

•••

Water Wars Erupt Statewide "With" Oppose Those "Without"

Pipelines Being Planned, Builders Forced To Provide Water First

by Johnny Gunn

While Las Vegas expands exponentially, the bedroom communities surrounding Reno face the same growth issues, primarily those of water and transportation. Eastern and southern counties in the Silver State are looking at a massive pipeline project that will bring hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of water to Clark County, and the residents of those counties can't count on their elected county officials to do much about it.

In Nevada, water is controlled at the state level, not the local level. It will be the state Engineer who will make the decision on whether or not 129,000 acre-feet of White Pine County water will flow to water starved Clark County. That pipeline goes through Lincoln County and could spark an economic boom in that area as well.

Clark County gets all but about ten percent of its water from Lake Mead, with a mandated 300,000-acre feet. Although the county has used less than its allocation, Lake Mead is well below its normal level, and despite the fact there has been a tremendous amount of rain recently, the entire Colorado River is suffering from a five year drought.

Other Lake Mead water users include Arizona with an allocation of 2.8 million acre-feet, California drawing some 4.4 million acre-feet, and Mexico eligible for 1.5 million acre-feet.

This has been a wet year in Clark County, but it isn't wet enough to break the back of a multi-year drought, and most water experts say it isn't the water that falls in southern Nevada that's important, it's the water that falls in the Rocky Mountains, the Wasatch Range, and other places that feed the Colorado River that matters most. Now, it will also be the water that falls in the vicinity of Great Basin National Park, where water for the proposed new pipeline will originate.

The Lyon County city of Fernley, just 30 miles east of the Reno-Sparks area, is facing its own water problems, and is calling for a unique way of settling them. Instead of declaring a moratorium on building, as many communities do, they have simply told potential builders, "prove to us you have the water for your development and we'll talk."

Fernley's city council is also looking to demand that developers build two water lines for each community, one for drinking water only, and the other for irrigation and landscaping purposes. Currently Fernley's water supply comes from wells, and the community is looking to be able to supply its needs through the Truckee River Canal that runs from Derby Diversion Dam on the Truckee River through Fernley to Fallon, Nevada, 20-miles to the east.

In order for builders to be able to supply their water needs, they will have to negotiate purchases of water rights either along the canal, or from other sources that can be used by the city.

Fernley is in Lyon County while Fallon is the county seat of Churchill County. Many ranchers in the Fallon area depend on the Truckee Canal and have water rights. Churchill officials aren't pleased with the Fernley proposals. Several ranchers with rights to Canal water have sold their rights to developers and others. There are also conservation interests looking to purchase ranching water for diversion to wildlife areas north and east of Fallon.

In the meantime, it was an act of Congress that will allow discussion to continue over the White Pine County pipeline. Legislation was passed allowing the government to sell land in Lincoln County, and give right-of-way for the water line. The sale of federal land could generate economic opportunities in Lincoln County. There plans afoot for development of homes, business parks, and golf courses near the Lincoln County border with Clark County.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will auction up to 90,000 acres and establish the corridor in which the pipeline can be laid. Along with the land to be sold, other BLM controlled property will be set aside as a wilderness area. Some conservation groups are saying the amount of land to be set aside for wilderness areas is less than what they would like to see.

In White Pine County, there is a new Board of County Commissioners primarily because of the possible water pipeline. According to Ely officials, the entire election was based on the desire of Clark County to transport water from White Pine to Clark. Currently the Southern Nevada Water Authority is looking for buildings to house their employees and from which to do business.

White Pine County has a population of about 9,000, and the authority said they will provide at least two clerical jobs. Other employees, such as engineers and water experts will probably shuttle back and forth between the three counties.

There are 25 White Pine County applications on file with the state water engineer now. Those applications will require his approval, and most target the Snake Valley and Spring Valley areas. Both are near Great Basin National Park in the eastern part of the county.

An acre-foot of water, that is enough water to cover one acre of ground one foot deep, contains about 326,000 gallons. The Clark County Water Authority is looking for 129,000-acre feet annually from the pipeline project.

Experts are saying the project will cost at least $1 billion, and may go well over that. The project could take as long as ten years to complete.

Although the northern part of Nevada has also been suffering from a five-year drought, lakes and reservoirs are in for a fill-up come spring. Because of early and continuing storms in the Sierra Nevada, most of the drainage systems that provide water to Reno-Sparks, Carson City, and surrounding communities, are well above average for this time of year.

For the period ending on the last weekend of November, the Truckee River Drainage has a snowpack of 143 percent of normal, the Lake Tahoe Basin is 115 percent of normal, the Carson River snowpack is 176 percent of normal, and the Walker River drainage sits at 186 percent of normal. Water experts feel that December, January, and February are big water producing months, and this could end up being an above normal year as far as water and the snowpack is concerned.