METH AND MISSOURI

The scourge of methamphetamine -- which can be smoked, snorted, swallowed
or injected -- is overloading law enforcement officers, spurring crime and
leading to serious burn cases. And Missouri may be the national capital of
its manufacture.

Up to 25 percent of the beds in the St. Louis area's premier burn treatment
unit are filled with casualties of making methamphetamine.

At Highway Patrol headquarters, overwhelmed chemists are months behind in
testing evidence seized from labs, leading to trial delays.

One prosecutor fears that a significant percentage of his county's
residents are abusing the drug, which produces wildly unpredictable behavior.

This is life at the top of the nation's methamphetamine heap.

Missouri put 2,130 meth labs out of business last year -- a rate of six per
day -- passing California for the first time, according to statistics
compiled by the Missouri Highway Patrol.

The pace of seizures this year in the major St. Louis-area counties is well
ahead of last year's, with no relief in sight.

"I think it would be wishful thinking to hope that we were busting as much
as 25 percent of the labs out there. We are lucky, I'd say, if we get 10
percent," said Maj. Jim Keathley, commander of the Highway Patrol's
criminal investigation bureau.

Keathley remembers when the 400 labs raided in 1997 seemed overwhelming.

"At the time, we thought, well, this is one of those fads and it will peak
out in two or three years. But we were wrong. It's not peaked out even today."

In the past two decades, the drug has swept relentlessly from the West
Coast. The eastward trend continues as raids on meth labs mount in Illinois.

The Metro East area still lags behind Missouri, but Illinois authorities
discovered a record number last year as well.

"We're still finalizing our stats for 2001, but it looks like we're going
to be 60 percent over (2000)," said Master Sgt. Bruce Liebe, clandestine
lab coordinator for the Illinois State Police. "We seem to be accelerating
at the same pace as Missouri, but about four years behind them."

Long-lasting and toxic

Coveted as euphoric and stimulating, methamphetamine can be smoked,
snorted, swallowed or injected. It provides a cheaper and longer-lasting
high than crack, and many experts consider it more addictive and toxic.

Some methamphetamine users remain awake for days, leading to
hallucinations, paranoia and psychotic states.

It is not uncommon for abusers as young as in their 20s or 30s to suffer
strokes or heart attacks.

Keathley said authorities have arrested meth offenders across a wide
demographic, including wealthy professionals. But mainly, he said, they are
poorer whites.

"I don't know of any studies that have quantified users, but I'd say that
99 percent of the abusers are white," Keathley said. He was unsure why the
drug had not caught on among Hispanics or blacks. "It may just be a matter
of time before it does," he said.

Complicating enforcement is the ease with which the drug can be manufactured.

Like growing marijuana or brewing moonshine, making methamphetamine is
often a do-it-yourself operation. But for police, the similarities end there.

"When we arrest marijuana growers, there is seldom an altercation," said
Keathley. "But these meth cooks want to fight. They don't want to give it up."

Simple recipes for making the drug -- using cold pills, camp fuel and
coffee filters -- are on the Internet. The only ingredient cooks can't buy
at the supermarket is anhydrous ammonia, a common farm fertilizer
frequently stolen from co-ops and barns.

In recent months, as security has tightened around those sources, some
cooks have turned to making anhydrous out of household ammonia.

Police have discovered highly volatile meth cooking in open fields, motel
rooms, secluded state park campgrounds and on kitchen stoves with children
playing nearby.

In urban areas, such as St. Louis city and county, it has become common to
find rolling meth labs in moving vehicles. When cooks finish the two-hour
brewing process, they toss the toxic waste onto roadsides.

Beyond small-time

California's "super labs" continued to outstrip Missouri in volume of
production last year. But local cooks are moving beyond small-time
operations, as indicated by a recent raid in Jefferson County. Police
estimated that 25 pounds of the drug were made in the lab in a matter of
weeks, whereas smaller labs would produce just a few ounces in the same period.

And while the cooking process may be simple, it is dangerous.

In April, a High Ridge firefighter was hurt in an explosion while fighting
a house fire that started in what authorities said was a meth lab in the
basement.

Thieves are frequently injured stealing anhydrous ammonia. It is so cold --
with a boiling point of minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit -- that a breath of it
can sear the lungs. Anhydrous ammonia sucks water out of the skin and may
cause fatal burns.

With alarming consistency, officials at the burn center at St. John's Mercy
Medical Center are seeing charred hands, scorched faces and internal
hemorrhaging from suspected meth fires and explosions.

The center treats about 17 cases a month and estimates three to four of
those are related to meth burns.

"We're seeing some very devastating but typical flame and blast burns,"
said Dr. Michael Smock, director of the burn unit. "But with meth, what you
see isn't always the worst injury. With anhydrous, there can be very
serious damage to the lungs and vocal cords. If the patients won't be
honest with us and tell us how they were injured, there are some very
serious internal components of a burn that might get overlooked."

In his office at the Franklin County Sheriff's Department, Detective Jason
Grellner keeps souvenirs of raids.

A marijuana bong shaped like a skull is propped on top of a file cabinet.
An inert hand grenade makes a nice paperweight. And leaning in one corner
is a macabre memento: a fire extinguisher with a gaping hole in the side.

"The guy who was holding this in his lap suffered a painful death," said
Grellner, cradling it. Converted to hold anhydrous, the tank ruptured in a
car traveling on Interstate 55 two years ago, killing one man and
critically injuring another.

Last year, Franklin County ranked among Missouri's top 10, with 67 labs
discovered. At 40 raids through April, the county is on course to nearly
double that figure this year.

Grellner's county is the third-largest in the state in land mass, most of
it rural and ideal for cooking meth. The process gives off a telltale
stench, resembling cat urine, that is hard to mask in more populous areas.

But, counting Grellner, the county has only three drug officers to patrol
its 900 square miles.

"The joke around here is that you can walk out the door of the station,
throw a rock and hit a meth lab," Grellner said.

Other crimes follow

The meth scourge has increased rates of crime across the board in Franklin
County. Addicts frequently burglarize homes to support their habit; vehicle
thefts, assaults, domestic violence and homicides have also kept pace with
meth's rising popularity.

"We had four homicides in the last couple of years that were related to
meth -- either drug debts or paranoid attacks," said Grellner, 33. "People
are moving here and building nice, big homes in places like St. Albans,
thinking they've left the crime behind. But we have burglaries as bad as
anywhere in St. Louis County."

Last year, the Legislature restricted the sale of drugs containing the
decongestants pseudoephedrine and ephedrine -- key meth ingredients -- to
no more than three packages in a single transaction.

"We are absolutely desperate down here," he said. "The entire portion of
the county adjoining Highway 30 -- I think meth is endemic there. If you're
not using it, then your friends are, or people you know are."