RURAL COUNTY IS METH CENTRAL

Watauga Battles Illegal Drug Labs

BOONE -- To hear law officers tell it, methamphetamine is killing
Watauga County. It nearly killed Darien South. On a January night, the
Deep Gap volunteer firefighter and part-time preacher was trying to
save a burning double-wide trailer. The crew had put out the flames
and was hunting for embers.

South's gloves were frozen where he had held the fire hose in the
7-degree weather, but all at once the ice melted. "We've got fire
under the floor," South called.

He opened a crawlspace door. When he poked his head in, a hot chemical
cloud hit him, searing his lungs and scorching his eyes. He reeled
back, then tried again.

The second time was worse. South coughed up blood and collapsed. As he
was loaded into an ambulance, a deputy told him the house was a meth
lab.

Of the 101 labs busted in the state so far this year, 26 have been in
Watauga County, and desperate prosecutors have begun charging meth
defendants under a law designed to fight terrorism.

"I want rid of this stuff," says Watauga County Sheriff Mark Shook.
"It's ruining our county."

Meth goes by a half-dozen street names, including crank and speed. It
is based on pseudoephedrine, a common ingredient in cold remedies. But
when highly concentrated and mixed with other chemicals, then smoked,
inhaled, injected or swallowed, it's a powerful stimulant that creates
a quick, intense euphoria. It is said to be more addictive than crack
cocaine.

Under the effects of meth, users might stay awake a week at a time.
They get agitated, they often hallucinate and many become violent.
This is complicated by the tendency of many to be well- armed, the
result of a thriving guns-for-meth trade.

Rural Watauga is well-suited for meth manufacturing, a process that
uses a stew of chemicals so volatile and poisonous that they must be
cleaned up by people in hazardous materials suits. The foul smell it
produces is less likely to be detected in the remote hills and
valleys, and a mountain culture that values privacy keeps neighbors
from asking too many questions.

Authorities in Watauga County first encountered meth about two years
ago. Initially, it was sold by truckers coming from Tennessee. A
network of cooks quickly followed, setting up labs in kitchens, the
bedrooms of children, outbuildings, barns and motels.

They have dumped their caustic leftovers on the roadside, or poured
them onto the ground, into creeks or down drains, or tossed them into
trash bins. Occasionally, the labs explode.

Once discovered, they must be professionally dismantled, at an average
cost of $2,000 to $4,000, according to the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Not prepared

With less than $400 worth of ingredients and three to four hours, a
cook can manufacture $4,000 worth of meth.

"This stuff hit so hard and so fast, we weren't prepared for it," says
Sheriff Shook, who was an investigator with the department then. "The
SBI wasn't ready, the laws aren't there and the rest of the state
isn't prepared for it, either."

Watauga County is scrambling to address its epidemic. In March, the
county's Department of Social Services started a Meth Lab Response
Team for Children and Families. The team has grown to about three
dozen members, including case workers, mental health and
substance-abuse experts, environmental scientists, judges,
firefighters and police.

"Each time we meet, we ask more questions, and we have more questions,
and we have to involve more resources," said Chad Slagle, a social
worker who helped organize the team. "This is a very costly problem."

From January to May, Slagle said, the county social services agency
opened 15 cases involving children from homes where meth labs had been
found. The agency has taken the position that when minors are found in
such homes, they cannot be returned, because no one knows what toxins
the child will be exposed to. If the parents return to the same home,
the children are placed in foster care or with relatives.

Shook, 37, was born in Watauga County and says his life's ambition was
to become sheriff, which he did last December. He has made fighting
meth a main mission; it consumes about half his department's
investigative time. Shook says he owes his three narcotics officers
more than 300 hours of overtime. He is requesting money to hire two
more officers.

The department has more leads on meth labs than it can investigate. A
recent one came from a first-grader, who described his parents' meth
operation in detail to his teacher and classmates.

"If we had the manpower, we could fill up the jail," says Todd
Phillips, who has worked narcotics for the county for two years.

Until recently, however, those arrested on charges of manufacturing
methamphetamine didn't spend much time in jail. That's because the
drug charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 months, and those with no
prior record could expect a suspended sentence with probation. Bonds
were typically set at $1,000 to $3,000.

"Some of them were back out cooking almost before we could get the
paperwork done," Phillips said.

Then, in July, District Attorney Jerry Wilson issued a memo suggesting
local law enforcement begin charging meth cooks under a state statute
that legislators rewrote after the Sept. 11 attacks to deal with the
threat of terrorism.

Wilson is relying on a phrase added to the law that makes it a felony
to manufacture a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon of mass
destruction, and defines such a weapon as "any substance that is
designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury and
.. is or contains toxic or poisonous chemicals or their immediate
precursors."

Putting law to work

The first person charged under this new approach, which Shook's office
refers to as the chemical weapons charge, was Martin Dwayne Miller,
who investigators say was one of Watauga County's most prolific meth
cooks. Before he was arrested on the chemical weapons charge July 11,
he had been brought in at least twice under the drug statutes, and
bonded out both times.

The felony charge he now faces carries a penalty of 12 years to life.
He remains in jail with bail set at $505,000.

Several other counties are now considering testing the
statute.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper said Wilson's use of the
antiterrorism provision reflects "a frustration that law enforcement
and prosecutors have been feeling because of the difficulty of the
fight."

Cooper plans a conference in early October at which law enforcement,
prosecutors, emergency responders, public health experts and others
will discuss strategies for dealing with the meth explosion. Some
states, for example, have begun regulating the sale of some
ingredients.

In the meantime, Cooper says, the antiterrorism statute is one avenue
to try.

Since they got Wilson's memo, county officers have charged at least
seven others under the statute. On Aug. 24, officers picked up
Christopher Lee Greene, at whose trailer Darien South was injured.
Greene has been charged with three felonies: manufacture and
possession of a chemical weapon, unlawful use of a chemical weapon,
and assault with a deadly weapon, inflicting serious injury. His bail
is $750,000.

To skeptics who question whether the charges will stand up in court,
Sheriff Shook says, "Go ask Darien South if it's not a chemical weapon."

Debilitating effects

South still doesn't know for sure what he inhaled that night. When he
woke up in intensive care three days later, it hurt so much to
breathe, he tried not to.

On Thursday, South had yet another doctor's appointment. His
physicians have brought the crushing headaches under control, but his
lung capacity has been dropping steadily for months. Doctors haven't
been able to tell him whether he will recover.

He lost his job as a route man for Coca-Cola, no longer able to work
12-hour days hefting hundreds of pounds of drink-syrup canisters. He
gets out of breath playing with his three children, and he can't take
care of his parents' yard anymore; now they help with his chores.

Sometimes at night, his wife, Renee, is awakened by his gasping, which
sounds more like that of a 70-year-old emphysema patient than the
robust 30-year-old he was just eight months ago.

On Sundays, South still musters the energy to step to the pulpit at
Bellview Baptist Church, whose 116 members rely on him. His sermons
are quieter these days.

"The message is just as powerful," his wife says, "but the messenger
is not."