WORKING KANSAS' DEADLY METH LABS IS A DANGEROUS, BUT FULFILLING, LIFE

Cindy Smith works for the state of Kansas and gets certain benefits: White
suits. Travel.

Free medical tests.

When they do the tests every two years, they take X-rays to look for
tumors, and they take blood samples to look for leukemia, among other
abnormalities.

They test her breathing to see whether she's lost lung capacity.

They haven't found anything yet. But they'll keep testing.

She's 31 years old. She likes her job -- sort of.

She sat down to talk about it last week, the tests and job stress and long
hours. Her boss teased her, saying that she doesn't have much of a social life.

She grinned. "Oh, I do have a life," she said.

It includes strapping on air tanks, waking up at all hours and traveling
the state of Kansas, so much so that "a couple of years ago, I realized
that I felt more comfortable sitting in a motel room than at home."

She shrugged when she said this. She wasn't griping. She's paid to do a
job, she said.

"So I do the job."

If cops didn't find the methamphetamine labs and clean them up, she said,
other people would eventually stumble into them. There are hundreds of meth
labs in the state now.

So it's a necessity.

The medical tests have become a necessity because no one knows yet what
long-term health risks her job involves -- she doesn't know, and neither do
the doctors nor her bosses at the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Her job, as an agent with the KBI, is to put on the disposable white suits
and the booties and the gloves and the mask and the respirator, or the air
tank, and go into illegal methamphetamine labs to gather evidence.

Many KBI agents do this, and now many other law enforcement officers do
this, as meth labs multiply across the state.

Last year the KBI and other law enforcement agencies took down 702 illegal
meth labs. Six years ago, they took down only 7. They had no idea how much
this problem would multiply.

The chemicals in the labs -- where criminals mix and cook meth ingredients
- -- are toxic enough to easily kill people. Sometimes, in rural Kansas,
where meth criminals dump their trash in farmers' ditches, cows drop dead
just from sniffing the stuff.

Meth users whom the agents encounter often look 20 to 30 years older than
they actually are. Sniffing the chemicals and staying up for weeks without
sleep seems to age them.

Cleaning up after them, and gathering evidence to convict them, sometimes
requires dressing up like an astronaut.

Since 1997, Cindy Smith has gathered evidence at maybe 100 meth labs
wearing this kind of gear. The medical tests become necessary because even
with the protection, she's sometimes sniffed the fumes. So have all the
other KBI agents.

Sometimes the air is so thick with ammonia or other gases that the air
filter in her mask fills up after only 15 minutes. When the filter fills
up, it fails --what KBI agents call a "breakthrough." A breakthrough means
you breathe in the fumes -- ammonia or gases given off by solvents or
battery acids.

Everybody at the KBI who processes the meth labs has to undergo the tests,
even the chemists who analyze the evidence in the KBI labs.

KBI director Larry Welch regards the work his agents do as a form of
heroism, and he hopes it is appreciated by all Kansans.

Some of his meth agents are suffering from job burnout, he said. Down the
road, he said, some of them might get cancer.

Cindy Smith shrugs at that. She said she considers herself lucky.

She grew up in Kansas City, Kan., knowing what she wanted to do from the
time she was a kid.

Many people take years to figure out their careers, she said, but she knew
all along: She wanted to be a cop.

Right now being a cop means picking through meth trash and taking an
occasional X-ray. It means risk, for her and all the others.

But she gets to be a cop.