METH PRODUCTION GROWING IN ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD -- Production of the drug methamphetamine is on the rise in
Illinois, authorities say, with a 10-fold increase in the number of meth
labs seized in just the last few years.

Meth, which goes by the street names of "crank" and "ice" among others, was
popular in California for years before making its way east. In the
mid-1990s, the drug became popular in Missouri and eventually worked its
way across the Mississippi River into Illinois.

In 1997, authorities in Illinois turned up 24 meth labs, 11 of them in
Adams County. Most of the rest were in four counties at the southwestern
tip of the state.

By last year the number of meth labs seized by authorities jumped to 246,
including 56 in east-central Illinois' Coles County and Jackson County in
southern Illinois.

"When we first started getting labs in 1997, we'd get about one or two a
month. Now it's not uncommon to get three or four a week," said Master Sgt.
Bruce Liebe of the Illinois State Police, who spent the last three years on
loan to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, seizing meth labs. "If we
continue at the pace we're at, the projection will be over 400 this year."

Liebe said meth presents two big problems: it's addictive and easy to make.
In Illinois, the most common method of meth production uses anhydrous
ammonia, an extremely volatile chemical but one that is easy to find in
rural areas because it's a common fertilizer.

In addition, meth can be produced using cold tablets, alcohol, ether, paint
thinner, Epsom salts and Drano. The laboratories are small and simple, so
can be found just about anywhere.

"With regard to labs being found in rural areas, it's almost a misnomer,"
Liebe said. "We do get some labs in the country, but the majority are
within a residential area, with other homes around. It's more common to
seize a lab in a neighborhood."

Drug experts say meth has yet to make big inroads in larger cities like
Chicago, where there is already a supply of relatively inexpensive cocaine.