PROSECUTOR FIGHTING METH USING LAW THAT PUNISHES TERRORISM

BOONE - A Watauga County prosecutor is using a law intended to combat
terrorism to fight the spread of methamphetamine laboratories in
northwest North Carolina.

District Attorney Jerry Wilson has charged Martin Dwayne Miller, 24,
of Todd with two counts of manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon
in connection with a methamphetamine arrest Friday. Miller also is
charged with eight other drug-related offenses.

He was being held in the Watauga County Jail under $505,000
bond.

"This is a two-edged sword," Wilson said. "Not only is the drug
methamphetamine in itself a threat to both society and those using it,
but the toxic compounds and deadly gases created as side products are
also real threats."

In Buncombe County earlier this month, authorities found evidence of a
drug lab at a Black Mountain motel.

State Bureau of Investigation agents searched a room at the Apple
Blossom Motel on July 7. They found chemicals and glassware used to
produce methamphetamines, according to a search warrant.

In May, officers charged a Swannanoa man with operating a meth lab in
his bathroom. Paul Wilson, 38, faces four felony drug charges. The
Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a local drug enforcement agency,
conducted the investigation.

"We're getting our first shock of it here now," Lt. Scott Allen of the
agency said of meth production in May.

The most serious drug charges related to methamphetamine carry much
lighter sentences than the weapons of mass destruction law.

The law carries a sentence ranging from 12 years to life in prison on
each count. Wilson said he decided to use it while researching ways to
slow the advance of methamphetamine into the region.

The law reads, in part, that the term nuclear, biological or chemical
weapon of mass destruction applies to "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."

The chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine are toxic and highly
combustible.

Officials with the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts and the
N.C. Attorney General's Office said they thought that the Watauga
County charges are among the first filed under the weapons of mass
destruction statutes.