STAIN MAY HELP SPOT METH COOKS

WICHITA, KAN. -- It may fall a shade shy of catching thieves
red-handed, but for farmers fed up with methamphetamine cooks filching
their fertilizer, staining them pink will do just fine. Assuming you
can discourage thieves you cannot easily catch, a new product called
GloTell -- which is added to tanks of anhydrous ammonia -- will not
only besmirch the hands of those who touch the fertilizer, but leave
its mark on anyone who snorts or shoots the end product.

GloTell is already proving to be a handy deterrent, but there were
details to be worked out between its birth as a farmer's brainstorm
and finished product.

In the two years it took to develop GloTell, researchers at the
Southern Illinois University Carbondale found it did much more than
just stain thieves pink.

The visible stain, even if washed off, was still detectable by
ultraviolet light 24 to 72 hours later. As an added benefit, the
additive helped farmers detect any tank leaks, said Truitt Clements,
spokesman for Illinois-based GloTell Distributors LLC.

During product testing, GloTell was added to anhydrous ammonia tanks
at farms that had been having problems with thefts in Illinois,
Kentucky and Indiana, Clements said. Within a week, the thefts stopped.

On Tuesday, GloTell was unveiled at the Illinois State Fair.

Next month, Virginia-based Royster-Clark Inc. will begin selling it at
nearly 250 of its outlets around the nation under an exclusive
distribution agreement with GloTell, said Lori Ann Peters, a
spokeswoman for Royster-Clark.

The meth problem is especially bad in rural states like Kansas, which
ranks among the top five meth-producing states in the nation, said
Kyle Smith of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

In 2003, there were 649 meth labs were seized in Kansas, compared with
four labs seized in 1994, according to KBI statistics.

Anhydrous ammonia is especially dangerous to use in meth production --
it can burn lungs and cause explosions and chemical burns, Smith said.
Meth makers will likely turn to other production methods if GloTell
use becomes widespread.

"Even if it pushes them to use a different methodology, that is good.
. It has to be demonstrated to me first. I hope it works, but we have
to see," Smith said.