METH COOKS CREATE AMMONIA

Drug Makers Concoct Only Methamphetamine Ingredient That Cannot Be
Purchased Legally

St. Louis - Authorities once bent on curbing thefts of anhydrous ammonia
often used for methamphetamine have a new problem: Savvy makers of the drug
apparently are crafting the ammonia on their own.

Authorities this year raided a lab making anhydrous ammonia in Lemay, a St.
Louis suburb. Two recent raids of meth labs in St. Francois County
reportedly found cooks doing the same, said Capt. Scott Reed, a Missouri
Highway Patrol drug investigator.

And in Overland, another St. Louis suburb, authorities believe a home
caught fire this year after the recipe for anhydrous ammonia went awry in
the making of meth, a powerful stimulant that can be smoked, injected or
taken in pill form.

To Reed, creating homemade anhydrous ammonia is "the next big thing in
Missouri meth."

The patrol estimates there is a theft of anhydrous ammonia at least nightly
somewhere in Missouri, where the fertilizer is legally used for crops and
illegally converted to a meth ingredient.

Last year, more than one of every six meth labs in the country were found
in Missouri, where police recorded a nation-leading 2,725 raids and
seizures, according to federal and state figures released in March, a 28
percent increase over 2001.

The drug is made in makeshift labs using pseudoephedrine, the active
ingredient in most cold pills, and other ingredients such as anhydrous
ammonia or red phosphorous, found in flares and matches.

Anhydrous ammonia is the only ingredient that can't be bought legally for
recipes that make the most powerful, popular meth, meaning the relative
lack of availability often limits how much meth a cook can make.

Attempts to make anhydrous ammonia often fail, but Detective Jason Grellner
of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department narcotics unit said rewards,
such as potential cost savings and lower likelihood of being caught,
outweigh the risks for most meth cooks.

Attempts to make anhydrous ammonia have not made it to southwest Missouri -
where small labs have exploded - said Springfield police spokesman Officer
Matt Brown. "We haven't heard anything along those lines," he said. "Our
guys haven't seen it on the street yet."

Higher awareness of meth and its ingredients makes it harder to steal
anhydrous ammonia, meaning the chemical's black-market price can top $100 a
gallon, a huge markup. Also each year, police catch hundreds of suspected
meth cooks transporting stolen anhydrous ammonia or storing it in unlawful
containers.

Among the potential perils: Anhydrous ammonia generators - devices that
cooks craft from bottles, buckets and tubes to make the chemical - can
explode. If enough gas escapes from the generator, it can burn,
incapacitate or kill those nearby.

The process used by meth cooks to make anhydrous ammonia also leaves behind
a corrosive byproduct that could injure people exposed to it and hurt the
environment, said Christopher Boldt, a Missouri Department of Natural
Resources chemist.

And police say homemade fertilizer could lead to bigger drug labs.