ALERT STORES HELP STATE TRY TO STEM METH TIDE

Methamphetamine Can Be Made From Supplies, Chemicals Used In Agriculture

Mark Schleiss knows some of the people who call the Greenville Cooperative
to buy agri-business products aren't really farmers.

And when they want large amounts of fertilizer or chemicals such as
acetone, he won't sell.

"We have had phone calls from people I know are cooking drugs," said
Schleiss, the co-op's manager. "If we don't know the customer, we don't
sell them anything."

The Greenville Cooperative is one of several in Wisconsin cooperating with
the state Justice Department in being alert for people who want to buy
large amounts of farming supplies that also are used to make drugs such as
methamphetamine.

Agricultural businesses, hardware stores and pharmacies are among those
being asked to control sales of certain chemicals as part of the state's
effort to stop the growing manufacture and use of meth, said Randy
Romanski, a spokesman for the department.

Efforts like putting stores on alert - in addition to creating a half-dozen
regional-response, clandestine meth lab task forces and training local
police officers to work with drug agents in identifying and seizing meth
labs - are part of the state effort to control a growing meth business,
Romanski said.

Atty. Gen. Jim Doyle, now Wisconsin's governor-elect, told local law
enforcement officials in 1999 that meth - also called "crank," "speed,"
"ice" and "crystal" - was gaining popularity and moving into Wisconsin.

And that's been proven, Romanski said, in meth lab seizures and figures
from the state Crime Lab.

In 2000, 100 samples of meth were submitted to the Crime Lab for analysis.
That grew to 200 by last year, and Romanski said it likely will be 300 by
the end of this year.

Last year, police in the state seized 54 meth labs. So far this year, they'
ve seized 55, he said.

In early October, more than 20 state and local agents busted a meth lab in
remote northwest Waupaca County that was in the process of cooking drugs.

The husband and wife allegedly operating the lab are awaiting trial on
several drug-related charges, and their two young children are in foster care.

Among items police found were hundreds of punched-out cards of
over-the-counter cold pills, an ingredient in meth.

A gram of meth will sell for $80 to $100 and provides about 10 doses, said
Brad Dunlap, coordinator of the Lake Winnebago Metropolitan Enforcement
Group (MEG), but breaking up a meth lab is anything but routine.

Hazardous-materials squads are put on standby because of the acids,
fertilizers, cold capsules, lye and battery acid that are used in some
manufacturing facilities.

And that makes it one of the more dangerous drugs to use, said Dunlap,
whose unit was involved in the bust in Waupaca County.

"It's a homemade drug. If it's not produced properly some of the dangerous
chemicals can still be in the finished product."

Symptoms of meth use include extreme paranoia, hyperactivity, increased
aggression, a lack of appetite or a lack of sleep. The drug, which was
originally produced as a diet aid, also can cause heart attacks and strokes.

"I think people see the danger once they see what's in it," Dunlap said.

Romanski said law enforcement in the state has done well in fighting meth,
"and it's a fight that is going to have to continue."

"There are some states, especially in the Midwest, that have just been
devastated by meth labs," he said.

He said last year, police in Minnesota seized 232 meth labs, while 768 were
seized in Iowa. In Kansas and Missouri, more than 800 labs are seized a year.

The growth of the problem, especially in western Wisconsin, is severe
enough that U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl has asked the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration to open a two-agent office in Eau Claire to assist agents in
Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.

Kohl called methamphetamine "Wisconsin's fastest-growing drug threat."

Peg Lautenschlager, elected this week to succeed Doyle as Wisconsin's next
attorney general, said she will continue "aggressive" anti-meth efforts
after she takes office in January.

But she said decisions on the exact nature of that fight are pending since
the Department of Justice is facing a 5 percent budget cut.

Proposals to increase the number of federal DEA agents in the state and to
use local officers may be included in plans, she said. "Drug enforcement
continues to be a priority, but how our resources are allocated is the
issue," she said.

This year, a state program has trained 60 local police officers on seizing
drug labs. The program should help enforcement because only specially
trained agents from the state Division of Narcotics Enforcement had been
allowed in labs before they were seized.

"This stuff is terrible," Romanski said. "This is a very explosive
situation, not only for the people cooking this stuff but for people living
in the immediate area.

"These labs can be just about anywhere - on a work bench, in a basement, a
garage, a barn, a hotel room or a county park."

Dunlap said agents seized four meth labs in the Fox Valley so far this year.

"In our area the number you are talking is a small increase, but there were
none in '99," he said of meth arrests.

Part of that meth fight, though, puts businesses on the front lines.

And the effectiveness of the state's effort with business to control the
sale of meth components was shown when a DNE agent setting up a display at
a Platteville health seminar went to a drugstore to buy a half-dozen
packets of cold capsules.

The clerk wouldn't sell them.

"It can work in situations like that," Romanski said.

"Ag businesses know who their customers are. It is certainly part of the
solution. Hardware stores and merchants and agri-businesses have been very
c ooperative. They can be partners."

Schleiss said his co-op in Greenville has had calls from people wanting to
buy a 55-gallon drum of acetone or an ice cream pail full of nitrogen,
supposedly for their corn.

But if co-op employees don't know the customer, they won't sell to them.

"We always take their name," he said. "The people we deal with are
generally local people."

He remembers one call from someone who apparently wasn't.

"I asked one, 'What are you doing? Cooking drugs?'

"Then they hang the phone up."