DRUG LABS TARGET FARM FERTILIZER, POLICE WARN

EDMONTON - Farmers are being warned to keep an eye on a fertilizer
that may be stolen as an ingredient for crystal meth labs.

The ingredient drug manufacturers are after is anhydrous ammonia,
which is a source of nitrogen for grain fields and can be used in the
chemical recipe for the potent drug.

This form of speed is made from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, which
is found in diet pills and some cold medications, but it needs other
chemicals to create the reaction to make the methamphetamine crystals.

Using anhydrous ammonia, the "Birch reduction," is becoming a more
popular method of making meth in the United States, and RCMP feel
this method is being used by some illegal labs in isolated rural areas.

The RCMP have placed a warning in a provincial Agriculture Department
online newsletter for farmers to be vigilant if they have tanks of
anhydrous ammonia on their property.

A 20-pound propane tank of the chemical would go a long way in a
crystal meth lab, said Staff Sgt. Ian Sanderson of the RCMP drug
awareness service.

It may be in use here already according to evidence from a chemical
dump site found in a rural area and from the theft of a large
applicator from a farm near Wetaskiwin a couple of years ago.

Humphrey Banack, who has a grain farm near Round Hill, about 50
kilometres south of Edmonton, said he has seen evidence of
meth-makers out in the country. He was having a portable ammonia tank
filled up by the side of the road when some strangers stopped and
asked if that was ammonia. "That's when I came to the realization
that it could be used as a feedstock for crystal meth."

Banack doesn't think there's much farmers can do to prevent ammonia theft.

But most farmers don't keep it around all year, just during a three
or four week period in the spring or fall when they are fertilizing
their land, he said. The fertilizer dealer brings it out to the farm
in a portable tank, which is on wheels and hauled behind the applicator.

The tank is usually left in the field after the day's work is done
rather than hauling it back to a locked shed, which he said would not
be economical. And most farmers wouldn't notice if the volume of a
couple of small propane tanks was to go missing, he said.

Sanderson said that while farmers have a complex protocol for
handling the extremely dangerous chemical, illicit drug makers take
big chances to steal it. He suggested keeping the tank in well-lit
areas, and checking on them regularly and to make it more likely that
somebody skulking around the property is going to be noticed.

The RCMP have also given farmers information about how to recognize a
meth lab dump site where the chemical waste is left.