METH'S DOUBLE DANGER

RAINSVILLE - Methamphetamine, a drug the Nazis developed in World War II to
keep soldiers alert and aggressive, is the fastest-growing illegal drug in
Alabama.

Law enforcement officers from all over north Alabama and as far away as
Bayou La Batre gathered Wednesday at Northeast Alabama State Community
College to learn more about how the drug is made and what danger it poses.

The message was that methamphetamine is not only highly addictive for those
who use it, but also extremely hazardous for those who make it and agents
who close down their homemade labs.

It was the first meeting of the newly formed Alabama Methamphetamine
Laboratory Eradication Task Force. Members who attended were Sen. Lowell
Barron, D-Fyffe, Rep. Ronald Johnson, R-Talladega, Rep. John Robinson,
D-Scottsboro and Bob Lusk, Gov. Don Siegelman's representative.

District Attorney Mike O'Dell said some veterans brought the recipe for
meth back from Germany, "cooked" it on the West Coast and spread to other
parts of the country.

Meth was already widespread in the West by the 1970s, but did not show up
in north Alabama until much later. It has "exploded" in DeKalb and Jackson
counties in the past two years, agents said.

Chris Graham, an agent with the DeKalb County Drug Task Force, displayed
the readily available ingredients that meth cookers need to manufacture the
drug.

Coleman fuel, Heet, Sudafed, muriatic acid, Drano, iodine, starting fluid,
coffee filters, peroxide, aluminum foil, plastic tubing and common canning
jars were among the items.

One manufacturing method requires red phosphorus, which meth cooks get by
dissolving hundreds of striker plates from book matches in nail polish remover.

Others buy batteries in large quantities, from which they extract lithium.
Instructions for making meth are readily available.

The Wal-Mart in Fort Payne has voluntarily removed Ephedrine products from
its shelves, and sells them in limited quantities on request, O'Dell said.

The chemical combine is such a witch's brew that experienced officers can
find meth labs by smell alone.

One of the first meth labs found in the area was in Sand Rock, near the
school. It was in the kitchen of a "pharmacist from Georgia gone bad," said
Mark Hopwood of the state forensics laboratory in Jacksonville.

But a kitchen is not needed. Agents have found labs in duffel bags,
backpacks, abandoned houses, buses and pickup trucks. In DeKalb County,
dogs dragged 12 backpacks filled with meth-making chemicals and equipment
from woods where they had been dumped.

The ordinary ingredients needed to make meth can become lethal when
combined - flammable, explosive and toxic when inhaled.

At least three women have been seriously burned in DeKalb County when meth
labs blew up.

Chief Investigator Chuck Phillips of the Jackson County Sheriff's
Department gave an example of the danger meth labs pose even to firefighters.

A vacant house that agents believe was used as a meth lab burned, and the
lid on the septic tank blew off - the result, officers think, of chemicals
being dumped down the drain.

Every meth lab must be treated as a hazardous materials site, and cleaning
up a "pickup size" lab can cost from $3,500 to $6,000, Graham said.

Graham is in high demand as one of only three or four agents in north
Alabama certified by the Drug Enforcement Agency to clean up meth labs.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has levied fines of tens
of thousands of dollars on officers who entered meth labs without the DEA
certification.

Agents appealed to the legislators present for money to pay for training
and specialized equipment - such as hazardous material clothing, masks and
helmets - without which they cannot fight the meth problem.

Illicit meth cookers themselves pose a danger. The drug makes them highly
irritable and paranoid, and many of them equip their labs with automatic
weapons and sophisticated security equipment, Hopwood said.

He said one man was found to be making meth after his neighbors complained
of his running a weed trimmer in the middle of the night. Agents learned
that he had been making and using meth and had not slept for two weeks.

The Meth Task Force's primary mission is to gather facts to develop tougher
legislation to punish those who manufacture the drug.

Although many are involved in meth trafficking, most are making the drug to
feed their own habit, and unless agents can prove they are making it to
sell, these "personal use" meth cookers slip through the current law
against manufacturing the drug.

"It used to be that a few people had a lot of drugs," Graham said. "Now,
with meth, a lot of people have a little drugs."

"This is a different drug problem," O'Dell said. "It will take a different
approach."

The legislation now being drafted would eliminate the personal-use
exception, and O'Dell said he wants enhanced penalties for "making or
possessing the drug near churches, schools and housing projects."

The second meeting of the Meth Task Force will be Monday in Andalusia.
Other meetings will be held around the state.