METH A GROWING REGIONAL PROBLEM

Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones has seen the production, purchase and use of
methamphetamines -- or crystal meth -- flourish in rural parts of the county.

As his department shuts down one meth lab, another pops up to replace it.
In the past eight months, the sheriff's department has shut down at least a
dozen meth labs.

The drug is so popular among users that it has replaced marijuana and crack
cocaine as the No. 1 drug in the county.

"It was at first in the northeast part of the county (near Beulah)," said
Jones, who has been with the department for 30 years and is in his sixth
year as Lee County sheriff. "Now, that's not the case anymore. They are not
dedicated to one location. It's still primarily in the rural parts of the
county, but we are seeing them in the southeast and far western parts of
the county."

A couple of weeks ago the Opelika Police Department assisted in shutting
down a meth lab in Opelika in which 3 pounds of crystal meth was confiscated.

Five years ago, the Opelika Police Department made the largest crystal meth
arrest in the state's history with the assistance of Auburn Police, the Lee
County Sheriff's Department, the Alabama and Georgia drug enforcement
agencies, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and Atlanta Police, according
to Opelika police Capt. Melvin Harrison.

"About 26 pounds of amphetamines, which is a precursor to crystal meth,
were confiscated in Atlanta and that led us to confiscating 54 pounds of it
in southeast Opelika," Harrison said. "At the time of the arrest, we were
told it was the largest amphetamine bust east of the Mississippi (River)."

Crystal meth has "really surged" in the last three to four years, Jones said.

"The ingredients are readily available. You could pretty much go online and
learn how to make this stuff," Jones said.

Ingredients can be purchased at stores, such as Wal-Mart, according to
information from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency's Web site.

There are two primary methods for cooking meth, and both processes received
their name from the primary precursor, or base, chemicals used in the
production of meth.

One is known as P-2-P, according to research from Southwest Missouri State
University. The P-2-P (phenyl-2-propanone) method is used primarily by
large drug cartels in Mexico, the research reported.

The other is ephedrine reduction, which chemically extracts ephedrine or
psuedoephedrine from over the counter cold medicines, according to the
university. Although meth users, cooks and law enforcement officials refer
to the places where meth is produced as "labs," they have no resemblance to
a scientific laboratory.

Labs often are simple and consist of common household items, said Lt. Van
Jackson, Lee County's chief investigator. Meth can be cooked in basements,
old buildings, motel rooms, camping trailers and moving vehicles, he said.

"We have had a lot of labs discovered and uncovered," Jones said. "The
perception that we have a lot of labs in Lee County is more erroneous
because we have really cracked down on them."

Another growing trend Jones pointed to is the fact that young children are
being discovered in or near the area where the drug is being processed.
More than 20 percent of the meth labs seized in 2003 had children present,
according to information on the DEA Web site.

"We've done several things like work with the school systems in the
county," Jones said. "The fact that we find many young children in the
homes where this substance is being made -- that's particularly a concern."

Meth is becoming a concern in neighboring Tallapoosa County, too, according
to Sheriff Jimmy Abbett. He said in just the last couple of years, he has
seen an increase of meth cases within the county.

Like Lee County, Abbett said the concentration of the drug is found in one
of the more rural parts of the county. Ironically, the concentration in
Tallapoosa County also is in the northeast part of the county near the
rural community of New Site.

"Because it's so easy to make, it's hard to get a handle on it," Abbett
said. "But these new laws have really helped us out to crack down on the
making of this stuff."

Federal law now calls for stores, such as nurseries or Wal-Mart, to contact
the police if a person buys a large amount of a particular chemical that is
part of the crystal meth production process, Abbett said.

However, the meth cookers already have found ways to get around the law,
Abbett said.

"What we have noticed is that they shop around," Abbett said. "They might
buy at this one place and then go to another store clear across the southeast."

So who is making it?

A majority of the police agencies interviewed agreed it is made and used
mostly by Caucasian people.

In fact in Lowndes County, which has a predominately African-American
population, Sheriff Willie Vaughner said his department has discovered and
shut down just two meth labs in the past two years.

"Lowndes County is predominately black, so we don't have that type
problem," Vaughner said. "From my experience, most dealers and makers are
white. And the two we caught were white in our county."

As for Lee County, Jones said the drug is not being used or dealt by one
socioeconomic group.

"We are to the point now where we are seeing people from different walks of
life," Jones said. "Before, it was the lower income groups, and now it's
continued to spread to different levels of society.

"From the beginning it could have developed into a big problem, but we've
made a concerted effort to crack down on this so it wouldn't become a big
problem."