Look For It On Your Dealer's Shelves: 'Strawberry Really Really Quik'

... or A Spoonful Of Sugar Helps The Medicine Go Down:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- During an investigation last month, Arkansas police officers found a bundle of materials suspected of being used to cook methamphetamine in a trash can. What gave them pause were the packets of a strawberry-flavored children's drink mix next to it.

From lollipops to high-sugar sodas, law enforcement officials say they've found meth cut with a variety of candies, drinks and other materials over the years. Officials say the "designer meth" can smooth the chemically rough ingestion of the drug, making it easier for first-time users to try.

My mom forbade me from buying candy cigarettes when I was a kid in the '70s, for fear that they'd make me want to start smoking (naturally, that made me want them more, so I ended up getting them when she wasn't around and 'smoking' them with my friends down in the ravine behind one friend's house. But I digress). This would have made her blow her stack.

And maybe that's what the dealers are thinking, too:

"The drug cartels operate just like any other corporation would -- if they want to increase their market share, then they're going to have to change something about it. This is just an evolution. They've saturated the heavy users, now they are moving onto some other people," he [Chris Harrison, chief illicit laboratory chemist at the Arkansas lab] said.

The latest meth cut, known as "Strawberry Quick," uses powdered drink mix to give the drug a pink coloring. The sweetness of the powder can make meth more palatable and partially masks its harsh chemical taste.

. . .

Because of its chemical properties, meth easily mixes into any water-based liquid. Caffeinated, high-sugar energy drinks and sodas often litter areas where meth cookers manufacture the drug, sometimes used as a chaser to the stimulant, Harrison said.

Outside of drinks, police also have seen meth mixed with a variety of candy, cola and chocolate flavors. Cutting it with something else also may help cutting down the burning sensation some have when snorting powdered meth, Harrison said. When snorted, he said meth can destroy a person's septum.

Well, sure. Destroying one's brain, heart, teeth, lungs, liver - no problem there. But one's septum? Apparently that's where Joe Crankhead draws the line.

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