METH TRAFFIC SHIFTS LANES

There Are Fewer Local Labs, But Problems Remain, Officials Say.

The bad news: From 2004 to 2006, Chemung County had more clandestine
methamphetamine drug labs than any other county in New York.

The good news: The number of known meth labs in the Twin Tiers had
significantly dropped.

The bad news: Drug abusers in the Tiers are still getting high on
meth, but now much of it is coming from labs and suppliers in Canada
and Mexico.

That's the latest good news-bad news from federal and local law
enforcement officials.

Eight meth labs were busted in Chemung County and six in Tioga
County, N.Y., from 2004 to 2006, the latest numbers available,
according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Those numbers
don't include meth lab seizures since then -- including one in the
town of Dix in Schuyler County and one in Millport -- both discovered
in January of this year.

Bradford County saw five labs found and destroyed in 2004 and 2005,
say DEA officials.

Since 1999, more than 25 percent of all New York state
methamphetamine cases have been in the Southern Tier -- Chemung,
Tioga and Broome counties, drug officials say.

Meth is a powerful and highly addictive stimulant that can be cooked
up in a crude lab. The drug can be injected, snorted, smoked and
eaten to get a long-lasting high. Some of the chemicals used to make
meth include pseudoephedrine, commonly found in over-the-counter cold
medicines, and diet aids, lye, acetone and brake cleaner.

Overall, the number of known meth labs in the Twin Tiers has steadily
declined in the last four years, thanks to better public education
and tougher laws.

Anti-meth seminars, for everyone from municipal highway departments
to school districts, has taught the public what to be alert for --
chemical odors and discarded cold remedy packages -- and has resulted
in more citizens reporting suspected labs.

Additionally, new state and federal laws require people purchasing
cold medicines with pseudoephedrine to show identification and sign a
log that authorities can track to monitor and bust meth labs.

Law enforcement officials monitor those logs in local pharmacies to
stop potential meth makers before they can produce the drug.

Federal officials are doing the same.

"Just this year, our New York field division seized 216 kilograms of
pseudoephedrine," says Erin Mulvey, a spokeswoman from the DEA's New
York City office. "That's enough to make 108 kilograms (237.6 pounds) of meth."

While methamphetamine production appears to be slowing in the U.S.,
treatment for meth abuse has more than doubled since 2000, say DEA
officials. That, too, comes with a price.

That's because meth addicts are turning to identity theft to protect
themselves when they seek medical treatment, prescription drugs and
health insurance.

But don't be lulled into believing that local criminals aren't
manufacturing the drug.

"Yes, we've reduced the number of labs, but we're by no means out of
the dark," Chemung County Sheriff Chris Moss says. "Production may
have gone down, but I don't know that demand has."

Now, instead of making the drug in homes, garages or trailers,
druggies are making it in makeshift camps in the middle of the woods
where there are fewer homes and suspicious people to see and smell
the caustic chemicals in the highly addictive speed, Moss adds.

"People have just found more ingenious ways to make it," Moss says.
"That includes making it in the trunks of their cars. They drive
around while it's cooking in the back of the car."

As long as there is a demand for the drug, there will be people
willing to risk their lives and prison time to make it. It's all
about greed. As with most drug eradication programs, when you drive
the drug labs out of one area, they pop up in another.

That's why drug officials say they are seeing more meth coming into
the U.S. from dealers and labs in Canada and Mexico.

"It's always been that way," Mulvey says. "That's why in 2006 we
began a new initiative with Canada and Mexico to seize shipments
coming into the U.S."

Like everything else, meth production and use has gone global.

If we don't keep up the fight, we'll all be in for a world of hurt.