Pot Tarts. Strawberry Quick. Cheese.

The names are cute and hip, but the products drug dealers are peddling with them are deadly nonetheless, according to police who are struggling to keep up with the latest gimmicks aimed at getting young kids hooked on narcotics.

"Cheese" – crushed nighttime cold tablets laced with heroin – has dominated the attention of local narcotics agents as the mixture infiltrates Dallas-area public schools. At least 21 young people have died by overdosing on the drug.

But authorities are on the lookout for other drugs with catchy names, too – especially candy-flavored methamphetamine that appears to be spreading from west to east across the U.S.

Concern has reached all the way to Capitol Hill, prompting two U.S. senators two weeks ago to introduce legislation strengthening penalties for peddlers of candy-flavored narcotics.

No overdoses have been connected directly to these new strawberry meth varieties in North Texas – yet.

But Lake Worth police this week stumbled upon a significant quantity of the substance, known as "Strawberry Quick," and Fort Worth police reported finding a minuscule amount in April.

Other than that, Dallas and other police agencies in North Texas say they have yet to find the new form of meth. But few believe such a large urban area will remain unaffected for long.

"I am sure we can expect it in the future as trends tend to move through the larger cities," said Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, head of Dallas' narcotics division.

The Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office has not encountered the drug, but local agents are on the lookout, said spokeswoman Terri K. Wyatt.

"These are evil drug dealers who are marketing to kids," Special Agent Wyatt said.

At 2 a.m. Tuesday, a Lake Worth officer spotted a man sleeping inside a Pontiac Firebird parked at a Sonic restaurant on State Highway 199. When police searched Ronnie N. Smith's car, they found more than 400 grams of strawberry meth in two large plastic bags, in addition to various prescription drugs, several stolen credit cards and driver's licenses and about $1,800 in cash.

The pink crystals in the large bags tested positive for meth, said Lake Worth police Capt. Dave Tatsak. While officers weren't inclined to give the stuff a taste test – doing so would be illegal – it "definitely smelled like strawberry," he said.

Mr. Smith, 45, of Jacksboro, was arrested on drug possession charges and was being held in lieu of $50,000 bail. He requested an attorney and refused to talk to investigators, leaving them with no idea where he got the Strawberry Quick or what his intentions with it were.

Dallas County Sheriff's Department

In a search of a Jacksboro man's car this week, Lake Worth police found more than 400 grams of strawberry meth in plastic bags. The man was arrested on drug possession charges.

On April 11, a Fort Worth police officer found the drug during a traffic stop. About 5 p.m., the officer pulled over a Ford Explorer on a traffic violation in the 2300 block of Ridgmar Plaza and found a 20-year-old man in possession of some prescription Tylenol for which he had no prescription.

On the way to jail, the officer saw that the man was squirming, and once at the jail, the officer looked under the back seat and found a cigarette wrapper. It contained about a gram of "pink-colored, crystal-like substance believed to be methamphetamines," also known as Strawberry Quick, the officer wrote in the report.

"Depending on what the manufacturers use to cut the meth down, it can have various coloration, including pink," said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a Fort Worth police spokesman. "But our officers watch the TV news, too, so the catch phrase 'Strawberry Quick' did appear in at least one report."

He said he knew of no other accounts of the drug in Fort Worth.

About a dozen other local police agencies contacted said they had not come across the drug.

Concern over strawberry meth spiked nationally in February, when the Nevada Department of Public Safety's special investigations unit issued a police bulletin alerting law enforcement colleagues that the Carson City Sheriff's Department had seized some of the substance in late January.

The bulletin noted that the drug first turned up in Sacramento, Calif., where dealers were cooking meth with strawberry-flavored drink mix to cut down on the drug's bitter taste when snorted.

"If meth is cut with something after it is cooked, it loses its potency," said Special Agent Wyatt in Dallas. "With this, it's cooked into it. It's not diluted. It retains its potency."

Arkansas police also have reported finding strawberry meth, and the DEA in Washington, D.C., reports that a similar pinkish-red crystalline drug has turned up in Washington state, Idaho, New Mexico, Missouri and Minnesota.

Two weeks ago, the rise in reports prompted Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to introduce legislation that would increase penalties for dealers hawking candy-flavored meth and other narcotics.

"Research has shown time and again that if you can keep a child drug-free until they turn 20, chances are very slim that they will ever try or become addicted," Mr. Grassley said in a prepared statement announcing the legislation.

"This makes it all the more important that we put an end to the practice of purposely altering illegal drugs to make them more appealing to young people."

Still, the DEA doesn't consider strawberry meth to be a nationwide problem.

"There's more press coverage of this than actual substance," said Rogene Waite, DEA spokeswoman in Washington, D.C.

"The danger is that so much attention to this could potentially lure kids into thinking that they should go looking for it," she said. "You could argue that awareness is helpful, but you and I both know the nature of young people and their notions about experimentation. That's a classic problem with something like this."

Local police had similar reservations about releasing too much information when cheese heroin was first discovered locally in 2005 on campuses mostly in northwest Dallas. Authorities had hoped the mixture would gradually fall out of favor – as some flash-in-the-pan drug combos do – but cheese instead grew in popularity.

After cheese claimed its first known Dallas-area victim in April 2006, police began publicly talking about the drug's dangers. It has now spread to more Dallas campuses, as well several Dallas County suburbs.

It's unknown if strawberry meth has turned up elsewhere in Texas. Many police find out about the drug from news media accounts.

"The national media have been running stories on it, and that's the extent of our knowledge and experience with it," said Officer Joe Rios, a San Antonio police spokesman. "I think we had a case where meth has a slight tint, but it was a single meth user who cooked his own stuff that for some reason had a tint."

Few are surprised that a phenomenon such as strawberry-flavored drugs appears to have originated in California, whose drug dealers have a history of colorful marketing tactics aimed at kids.

In March 2006, DEA agents raided several warehouses near Oakland belonging to Beyond Bomb, a company that manufactured an entire line of marijuana-laced snacks and soft drinks.

Authorities uncovered thousands of marijuana plants, as well as an array of products, among them "Pot Tarts," candy called "Stoney Ranchers," drinks named "Toka Cola" and chocolate named "Rasta Reece's" and "Buddafingers."

As the case progressed, some argued that the operation was simply providing products to medical marijuana patients, who are allowed to take marijuana with a prescription under California law. But federal authorities say marijuana use is illegal under all circumstances.

"In a way, this case sort of answers the question, 'What will they think of next?' " said Javier Pena, special agent in charge of the Oakland DEA office at the time of the busts at Beyond Bomb.

"What so many people don't realize is that innocent children may somehow get their hands on these products and think they are just normal candy or soft drinks."

Authorities were tipped to the operation in October 2005 and eventually arrested Kenneth Affolter of Lafayette, Calif., and several employees.

In March, a federal judge in California sentenced Mr. Affolter to nearly six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana.