DRUG BOMB DEFUSED

Meth Production Fails to Catch Fire

EDMONTON - The much feared explosion of methamphetamines on Edmonton
streets has fizzled.

Declared a massive threat by police just two years ago, with warnings
of mushrooming underground labs cooking up the cheap drug, the meth
scare has failed to materialize for mundane reasons, says Staff Sgt.
Kevin Galvin, head of the EPS co-ordinated crime unit.

Like any for-profit venture, he says meth production was vulnerable at
its bottom line -- it was bad business.

"Meth is very difficult to manufacture, there's a lot of risk. There's
a lot of elements and ingredients to maintain and it's easy to be
discovered. It's just not cost-effective, compared to cocaine."

Methamphetamine stimulates the central nervous system and cuts
interest in food or sleep. A cheap and long-lasting drug, meth is made
with ingredients ranging from cold medications to paint thinner and
anhydrous ammonia.

It can be smoked, sniffed or injected.

But production of the drug is both financially and physically risky.
There are toxic containers and waste to be disposed of, and the threat
of lethal fumes and explosions.

"There's a number of well-known cooks in the region with a lot of
injuries from when things went wrong," Galvin says.

The inherent challenges have forced many labs to close, or move to
rural areas where there is less chance of discovery, say police.

Keeping home-based labs from proliferating is key to keeping a tight
lid on meth use, says Staff Sgt. Ian Sanderson of the RCMP's drug and
organized crime unit.

While areas in the United States, Australia and Canada have high
concentrations of meth, the same hasn't happened in Alberta, he points
out.

"The trend appears to have slowed here," he said.

"We're cautiously optimistic the efforts to combat it have
worked."

While some meth addicts leave the drug once they realize they can't
function on a day-to-day basis like they can while using other drugs,
selling a cheap, long-lasting drug didn't make financial sense to
distributors, either.

A strong community response is also credited with preventing a meth
epidemic. Mary-Anne Jablonski, MLA for Red Deer-North, sat on the
Premier's Task Force on Crystal Meth, which released a report on how
to combat the drug in September 2006. She now applauds the efforts,
but in hindsight she believes the task force should have had a wider
scope.

"I have come to the conclusion that we shouldn't have called it a
crystal-meth task force, but a general drug-abuse task force."

Meth was the big narcotics scare that perhaps overshadowed stories of
wider drug use in every community the task force visited. Of the
report's 83 recommendations, few have been implemented.

"We did focus on crystal meth, and the exposure of how bad it was
helped us get where we are today," Jablonski says.

Galvin agrees. "There was a very focused community response to the
issue with the police and community in general. Parents became
interested and informed. Business owners caught on when someone came
in and bought 500 over-the-counter diet pills."

But Edmonton's drug problem hasn't dropped with the defusing of a
potential meth explosion. Cocaine is still a healthy business in the
city. Some dealers move a kilogram of the drug every week. Between
three criminal groups in Edmonton, 100 kilograms can be turned every
10 days.

The profits are enormous. A kilogram that costs roughly $30,000 and
can be sold for as much as $120,000. Galvin's unit seized 46 kilograms
of cocaine in 2006. He estimates that represents less than one per
cent of the drug on city streets.

While increased pressure on the cocaine trade might cause
methamphetamines to re-surge to fill the void, "coke is the drug of
choice," Galvin says.

It's possible some people still ingest meth by accident, Sanderson
says, because the cheap drug is used to cut other street-level
narcotics like ecstacy.

Police are still keeping a close eye on the drug. "We're still very
concerned. It can take over a community once it takes hold," Sanderson
says.

"Vigilance is needed. It's still too early to declare victory."