METHAMPHETAMINE PRODUCTION HITS "EPIDEMIC' LEVEL IN WEST

LOS ANGELES - They stormed in after midnight, kicking down doors of homes
and businesses around this county's desert fringe.

More than 100 federal agents and local detectives took part in the raids.

And by the time the sun came up they had nabbed yet another gang of
suspected methamphetamine traffickers.

The raids last week culminated an 18-month investigation dubbed "Operation
Silent Thunder" that led to the arrest of nearly 300 people on drug or
weapons charges.

Hundreds of firearms and explosives have been seized.

More than a dozen large makeshift laboratories for manufacturing
methamphetamine have been closed, and quantities of the drug worth more
than $2 million -- usually sold on the street in small amounts of powder or
rock -- have been confiscated.

Law enforcement authorities acknowledge the results are another sign of
just how pervasive and sophisticated the illicit methamphetamine trade has
become in many parts of California.

Once casually run, mostly by outlaw biker gangs, methamphetamine production
is now a tightly managed big business.

It is concentrated in the state's hills and deserts and its vast, rural
Central Valley.

So much methamphetamine is produced in California that federal officials
now consider the state a "source nation" for the highly addictive drug,
which is also known as speed, ice or crystal.

Meth labs also are flourishing more than ever in several other Western
states such as Arizona, Nevada and Washington.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, about 2,700 meth labs
were discovered in California in 1999.

The state with the second-highest total, Washington, had about 600. Arizona
had nearly 400.

After the raids, authorities said they were confident they had crushed the
remnants of an elaborate criminal enterprise.

But they said there would be many more to contend with.

"We think we've put a huge dent in this organization," Lt. Ron Shreeves of
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said after the raids.

"But is someone else going to fill its shoes? Absolutely. There's too much
money involved."

Federal narcotics officials say use of the drug across the country has
doubled in the past seven years.

Much of the market, they say, is controlled by criminal groups based in
Mexico that use California migrant workers to cook and transport the drug
from shacks and trailers in the desert or barns in the fields of the
state's agricultural midsection.

As the operations have become more organized -- some meth labs operate
every day, authorities say -- production has greatly increased.

Ron Gravitt, the clandestine laboratory coordinator for the California
Justice Department, calls the state's methamphetamine problem "an epidemic."

Law enforcement agencies in California are shutting down more than 2,000
meth labs each year, he said.

And in some parts of the state, the tally has doubled or tripled over the
past decade.

"Right now, we're just inundated with meth," Gravitt said.

California will spend $30 million this year to crack down on the
methamphetamine trade.

But just finding meth labs, some of which produce 50 pounds of the drug a
week, is often difficult because they are remote.

Jose Martinez, a spokesman for the DEA's office in Los Angeles, said
sparsely populated areas are ideal for drug organizations to set up operations.

"Because it's wide-open space, a person can go out there and cook, and it's
not easy to detect," he said.

When law enforcement agents make a bust, they usually catch only front-line
workers who know little about the larger criminal operation for which they
work.

Those workers, and the labs, are often quickly replaced.

Officials say the proliferation of meth labs is also creating serious
environmental problems.

The state is spending millions to clean up the toxic chemical waste dumped
in water or spilled on soil during or after the often-crude manufacture of
the drug.

The raids last week followed months of undercover investigation and
targeted methamphetamine trafficking in the Antelope Valley on the eastern
end of Los Angeles County.

It's a high desert region that long has been a hub of the meth trade.

At a news conference lastweek, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said the
suspects are members of a drug ring that distributed methamphetamine
primarily in the West.

He said the organization is linked to Mexican drug traffickers and white
supremacist groups in Southern California.

Agents seized a half-million dollars in cash and more than 100 high-
powered weapons in the early morning raids, which took place at nearly two
dozen homes and small businesses.

The arsenal included assault rifles with bayonets and a grenade launcher.