METHAMPHETAMINE MAKES INROADS IN FLORIDA, GEORGIA

Like so many trends, it started in California. Now it has taken root
in America's heartland.

Cheap, addictive and easy to make, methamphetamine has invaded small
towns and counties previously unaffected by illicit drug use,
especially in the West and Midwest.

In Missouri, police raided 2,514 active meth labs last year, according
to the DEA.

In Iowa, now a hub for trafficking meth to the East Coast, the number
was 871 last year, and 553 labs the year before. In Kansas, 757 labs
were found last year.

Even in North Dakota, with about two-thirds the population of Pinellas
County, police busted 209 labs.

Increasingly the drug is moving east, especially into Georgia and
Florida, according to the DEA. In the year ending Sept. 30, police
seized 228 meth labs in Florida, mostly in the Panhandle and Central
Florida.

That's up from 129 the previous year, and 28 in 2001.

Hillsborough, Polk and Pasco counties are the main hubs for meth
trafficking in the state. Its use is widespread in the Panhandle.

"It's growing exponentially since we started, and it's not slowing
down," said Tom Feeney, a Tampa-based supervisory special agent for
the DEA who heads the state's methamphetamine task force.

Much of the meth on the market today is manufactured in large
clandestine labs in the West and Mexico, then brought east. It also is
made locally, mostly for personal use and limited sales.

There are a dozen ways to cook it, but most fall into two categories:
One uses red phosphorous, attainable from match heads, and other
chemicals to distill ephedrine from over-the-counter cold medicines.

The other uses anhydrous ammonia, a compressed gas used as fertilizer,
to the same effect. Meth cooks usually steal ammonia from storage
tanks in farming areas.

Most states, including Florida, now have laws allowing police to
charge people for having combinations of chemicals, including cold
medicine, acetone, iodine and large quantities of matches.

One pound of meth produces 6 to 10 pounds of toxic waste, and each
small seized lab costs from $4,000 to $6,000 to clean, the DEA estimates.

Except in California, meth mostly has bypassed major cities, although
it increasingly is being found in Tampa, Feeney said. Police worry its
arrival in urban neighborhoods would trigger the same reign of
violence that accompanied the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s.

Users "go on these binges for days and days and days. There's no other
drug like that," Feeney said. "I've been in narcotics for 21 years,
and I can tell you without a doubt they are the most violent,
unpredictable violators you'll ever run up against."