Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

METH LABS VANISHING FROM STREETS

The "mom-and-pop" meth lab seems to be going the way of all
mom-and-pop operations of the past: the gas station, the hardware
store and the grocery.

According to local law enforcement, whereas meth cooks once learned
the recipe from family members or sold it for more drugs,
Mexican-based drug-trafficking organizations now rule the meth trade
in Nevada, producing pounds of high-quality crystal methamphetamine
in superlabs in California and Mexico and slipping the drug across the border.

"Five years ago it was labs, labs, labs and that was the issue," said
Reno Deputy Chief Ron Glensor, who attended the 2006 Methamphetamine
Summit in Memphis in May. "We're no different than what many other
jurisdictions are saying their situation is. The mom-and-pop labs are
reduced significantly and now they're dealing with the cheap
methamphetamine coming into the country over the border or from Asia."

In 2005, officials seized just seven labs in Washoe County and 50
statewide, down from 284 in 2000.

Officials say many factors contributed to the fall of meth labs. But
some say clandestine labs still operate freely in Washoe County
because no one is looking for them.

"There's more than we know out there because we don't have the
manpower to go investigate them," said Lt. Jim Forbus, a former
commander of the now-defunct Consolidated Narcotics Unit and current
leader of the Washoe County Lab Team.

A vanishing problem?

Mike Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing and
the author of a law enforcement guidebook about clandestine labs,
attributes the decline in meth labs to restrictions on the retail
sales of such precursor chemicals as pseudophedrine, found in Sudafed
and other cold medicines.

"I think without a doubt the changes in the retail restriction (has
reduced labs)," Scott said. "It's an unintended consequence that it's
going to enhance the markets for imports."

The Combat Meth Epidemic Act passed in March by Congress now limits
the amount of meth ingredients such as cold pills that can be bought
at once. After Sept. 30, people buying drugs containing
pseudophedrine -- the key ingredient in methamphetamine -- will be
required to show ID and sign a logbook.

Measures like this and agreements with local stores selling chemicals
such as tincture of iodine, another ingredient in meth, have made it
harder for cooks to assemble labs, experts said.

Cheaper, more potent Mexican meth has also reduced demand for the
home-cooked crank or powdered meth. Drug dealers arrested by the
Regional Street Enforcement Team tell detectives their supplies come
from California or Mexico and nothing is made locally, Glensor said.

But that doesn't mean all the labs are gone, Forbus said.

"We rarely see powder (methamphetamine) anymore, but we know it's out
there," Forbus said. "It's just like soda pop. Others can buy Pepsi
and Coke, but others can only afford Shasta Cola."

Forbus leads the Washoe County Lab Team, made up of five supervisors,
nine deputies and representatives from the Washoe County Health
Department and the crime lab. The team responds only to known labs
and members are paid overtime through a federal grant.

"We just don't have the manpower or the time," Forbus said. "Our role
now is a reactive one."

Reactive enforcement

Washoe County deputies stumbled across a meth lab on a Saturday
afternoon in March. High winds had blown a Sun Valley woman's shed
near a gas line on East 8th Avenue. The woman told a deputy she saw
something out of place. She had watched another woman leave her
travel trailer and fill up buckets of water at an abandoned house on
the same property.

Deputies questioned the woman, Shawnie Kunchick, and her boyfriend, Jon Davis.

Davis and two deputies were speaking behind the back of the trailer
when Davis told them he was going to be in trouble for manufacturing,
authorities said. A deputy asked Davis if he just said he had a meth
lab in the trailer. Davis began to cry and said "these guys brought it over."

Then he led deputies directly to the lab.

"Davis entered the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain,"
Deputy Wes Bloom wrote in his incident report. "I looked inside and
saw a stove burner sitting on the sink, a hypodermic needle sitting
on the back of the sink, a clear bottle in the medicine cabinet that
was labeled 'nitric acid.' Above the bottle was a yellow pill bottled
labeled 'E ONLY' filled with white, flakey shards inside, suspected
of being methamphetamine."

Forbus said the lab team pulled 15 gallons of waste out of the travel trailer.

The Sun Valley trailer, found on March 23, was the third lab this
year, Forbus said.

A drain to enforce?

Scott's guidebook, published by the Department of Justice, helps
police analyze their local lab problem and find an effective solution.

The guidebook says finding and seizing labs may not be an effective
enforcement tactic. Labs are easy for cooks to assemble and move, but
costly and time-consuming for law enforcement to process.

"It might be a reasonable thing for a community to say, 'We need to
shift resources away from lab seizures into things like treatment," Scott said.

Communities not hunting for the labs need to rely on other ways of
finding out about illicit activity, such as alert systems from local
hospitals about possible overdoses or a tip line for citizens to
report suspicions, he said.

During the late 1990s, the now-defunct Consolidated Narcotics Unit
had two detectives seeking out meth labs and following up tips. The
detectives discovered big and small labs, as many as 50 a year, until
2000, when the unit focused instead on street-level drugs.

The SET team, a regional force made up of undercover detectives from
Reno and Sparks police, University of Nevada, Reno police and the
Washoe County Sheriff's office, now targets street-level to mid-level
drug traffickers.

"I don't categorize the personal use users as a big problem in the
drug trade," said Sgt. Dave Evans, one of the leaders of the SET
team. "You're always going to find somebody who's doing it. Meth labs
are usually processed as a cleanup process. Very few ever get
prosecuted. There's an enormous amount of money that goes into them."

[Sidebar]

David Payton and his wife lived in a house on Quaking Aspen Road in
Palomino Valley for five years, until they moved away and Payton
decided to rent the place out. In February 2000, he got a call from
police; renters had transformed the home into a toxic methamphetamine
lab. Payton was stuck with almost $50,000 in repairs and cleanup
costs. "It had my wife at the time in tears for weeks and weeks,"
Payton said. "I was stomping mad. We were really, really victimized
there." Chemicals stained the walls, drapes, carpet and furniture.
The meth "cooks" dumped the waste down the toilet and flushed it into
the septic tank -- which had a broken line and spread chemicals all
over the property. The renters, Marilyn Altergott Dustin and husband
Kenneth Anderson, had been evicted by Payton but returned without his
knowledge. For 13 months, they made and sold several pounds of meth each month.

[Sidebar]

Small Labs, Big Problems

Authorities say mom-and-pop meth labs are typically more dangerous
than a superlab because the home cooks are inexperienced. "They're
small but they're equally as toxic," Reno DEA Agent Mark Snyder said.
"They might be more dangerous because the size of the labs and the
stability inside a trailer, a bathroom, a car, in a motor home.
They're very dangerous." Paul Donald, a hazardous materials
specialist with the Washoe County Health Department who has responded
to nearly every meth lab and dump site in Northern Nevada, remembers
a case about eight years ago, when a cooker caused an explosion and
sustained severe chemical burns. Instead of going to a hospital, the
man rented a hotel room and set up another meth lab there. "After
three days of excruciating pain he couldn't take it anymore and went
to a hospital," Donald said. "But look at the potential. This guy has
already blown it up once and here he is cooking in a hotel-casino,
exposing the public." Cooks can start fires and cause explosions
while making methamphetamine. The chemicals stain the walls, carpet
and furniture, making it toxic for residents, often young children.
When cooks are done, they frequently dump the waste and garbage in
rivers or down drains or leave bags of glassware and stripped
matchbook covers in the desert, Bureau of Land Management officials
said. Cleanup costs for the average lab can cost $2,500 to $10,000,
according to the Department of Justice. Superlabs can cost up to
$150,000. Donald has stories about chemicals melting clothes off of
first responders to a lab inside a motor home and the interior of a
home where the walls were blackened from several explosions.

[Sidebar]

Production Methods

# Red Phosphorus or "Mexican" meth: Primary chemicals are ephedrine
or pseudoephedrine, hydriodic acid and red phosphorus. This method is
normally used by Mexican drug traffickers or cookers trained by
Mexican traffickers to produce larger amounts of d-methamphetamine.
It is typically seen on the West Coast and is the method most
frequently used in Washoe County.

# Cold Cook: Requires ephedrine, iodine and red phosphorus. Chemicals
are mixed in a plastic container, where methamphetamine oil
precipitates into another plastic container through a tube attached
to each cup. The mixture is typically heated by sunlight or by
burying the containers in hot sand to produce small quantities of
high quality methamphetamine.

# Nazi Method: Primary chemicals are sodium or lithium metal and
ephedrine. Normally produces up to 1-ounce quantities of high-quality
methamphetamine and is frequently used by independent methamphetamine
cookers. The Nazi method also requires anhydrous ammonia, and is
usually the method of choice in the Midwest.

# P2P: Requires phenyl-2-propanone and aluminum in a complex process
that produces low-quality methamphetamine. This method is normally
associated with outlaw motorcycle gangs and is uncommon because
phenyl-2-propanone is difficult to procure.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice, RGJ research

[Sidebar]

SIGNS OF A METH LAB

# Unusually strong chemical odors such as ether, ammonia and acetone

# Excess amounts of cold medicines containing ephedrine or pseudophendrine

# Empty pill bottles or blister packs

# Starter fluid cans opened from the bottom

# Heating sources such as hotplates/torches

# Excess coffee filters, baggies, matches, lithium batteries

# Cookware with white residue

# Glassware, mason jars or other glass containers

# Plastic tubing, funnels or hoses leading outside for ventilation

# Drain cleaner, paint thinner, toluene, denatured alcohol, ammonia,
acid, starter fluid, antifreeze, hydrogen peroxide, rock salt,
iodine, lantern or camp stove fuel

# Excessive amounts of trash, particularly chemical containers,
coffee filters with red stains, duct tape rolls or empty cans of
paint thinner or pieces of red-stained cloth around the property

# Extensive security measures or attempts to ensure privacy such as
"No Trespassing" or "Beware of Dog" signs, fences and large trees and shrubs.

# Curtains always drawn or windows blackened or covered with aluminum
foil on residences, garages, sheds or other structures

# Frequent visitors, particularly at unusual times

# Renters who pay their landlords in cash

SOURCE: Partnership for a Drug-Free America