METH LABS CONTINUE TO PROLIFERATE, EVEN AFTER CRACKDOWN

The number of makeshift methamphetamine labs in the Upstate has continued to
grow, even after authorities six months ago broke up what they called a ring
responsible for most of the dangerous drug in the area.

In May, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement
agencies said 36 meth labs -- most of them in the Upstate -- had been
dismantled in South Carolina since January, up from only five in the state
three years ago.

Now, the total is 99, even though the crackdown six months ago was believed
to have shut down 75 percent of the supply of the drug in three Upstate
counties.

It costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars for authorities to clean
up the dangerous homemade labs where the drug is manufactured.

In South Carolina, the biggest meth problem is in the Upstate. In 2000,
Greenville-area police found 13 labs. So far this year, they've closed 77
labs -- about 80 percent of the labs found in the state.

Through Aug. 31 of this year, the state had racked up cleanup costs of
$290,970. Cleaning up a meth lab, on average, costs about $4,000.

Almost anyone can set up a bathtub or kitchen lab using detailed
instructions from Internet sites or books, authorities said.

In rock form or in a confectioner's sugar-like powder, meth is a synthetic
amphetamine, similar to cocaine. It's been around since the 1970s, but
dealers recently have found a ready market in South Carolina. Only crack
cocaine is a more pervasive drug in the state.

Methamphetamine users call the drug crank or speed or ice. Two things make
meth a popular drug: It's a quick, long-lasting high, and it's cheap.

"It's a poor man's cocaine," said Lexington County Sheriff James Metts.

Some drug users start cooking meth when they figure out how easy it is to
feed their habit while making money.

"That's the lure," said Demi Garvin, a chemist with the Richland County
Sheriff's Department. "There's a huge profit margin."

It costs about $75 to buy lab equipment, but most cooks set up shop for
less, stealing what they don't have. They use ordinary household items such
as rubber hoses, glass dishes, coffee filters and plastic containers.

"It's homegrown from Kmart," said Sgt. Darren Amick of Lexington County's
Multi-Agency Narcotics Enforcement Team. "When we go into a lab, we're
usually tripping over Tupperware."

Police and firefighters said they risk their lives every time they find one
of the chemical labs or even pieces of a lab.

Household chemicals, such as paint thinner and lye, and the common farm
fertilizer anhydrous ammonia used to make meth are highly combustible.
Turning on a cell phone can spark an explosion.

Meth cooks sometimes set booby traps around already explosive labs to
prevent robberies and arrests. The chemical danger is intensified if cooks
are sloppy.

Meth makers usually head to the country to produce the drug because of the
strong chemical odor. Some people say it smells like strong cat urine, a
smell neighbors and police notice.

"It's the smell that a lot of times leads us to them," Lexington County's
Amick said. "It's a pure chemical smell. There's nothing like it."

Certified teams investigate the crime sites in hazardous-site moon suits
after getting special training that's paid with state and federal taxes. In
South Carolina, 25 law enforcers, DEA agents and police officers are
certified as meth-lab handlers, said John Ozaluk, the Drug Enforcement
Administration's assistant special agent in charge in Columbia.

The federally funded DEA handles training and equipment. It costs about
$3,600 to train and equip one officer, he said. Annual recertification costs
taxpayers another $1,500 for each officer.

As much as meth makers try to make a living off drugs, most spend their
profits getting high and rarely have much money or property worth seizing to
offset taxpayer costs, Sheriff Metts said.