CHASING HIGH COSTLY HABIT

The price has gone up for what state narcotics agents call the drug of
choice for white Mississippians.

Methamphetamine labs once confined to rural north Mississippi have swept
across the state in the past three years.

Now a more expensive meth has hit Mississippi. Known by the slang names of
"crystal," "glass" and "ice," the addictive drug sells for $1,200 to $1,400
per half ounce, more than twice the street price of homemade meth.

"With ice, you get more bang for your buck," said Kevin Parker, a
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics group supervisor in Tupelo. "That's why the
price is so high. It gives you a high for three or four days."

Meth users are always chasing a stronger high, said John Harless, a bureau
agent. "A trucker told me that snorting one line of ice kept him awake from
Mississippi to California," Harless said.

The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics worked 725 meth cases in 2001, a 31
percent increase over 554 cases in 2000 and a 116 percent jump compared to
335 cases in 1999, according to bureau statistics.

Just as troubling is the sudden appearance last summer of the expensive
West Coast meth ice, so-called for its likeness to broken glass, crushed
ice and rock candy. The drug had never been seen in Mississippi before
then, said Ron Pitts, the bureau's deputy director.

"It identifies for us a trend by drug traffickers to introduce a different
form of meth into Mississippi," Pitts said. "The danger with ice is it's a
highly addictive form of meth that causes explosive behavior. It's like
heroin in that it's easy to overdose on it."

Agents have already investigated 10 cases in Gulfport, Hattiesburg and Tupelo.

The drug originated in Japan in 1919. It was being distributed by Asian
gangs in Hawaii by 1988. Traditionally outlaw motorcycle gangs have
provided protection and distribution networks for West Coast meth dealers,
Harless said.

Ice is 80 percent or more pure meth. Only a small amount is needed for a
high. Homemade dope made in Mississippi is only 40 to 45 percent pure meth,
Harless said.

Last Monday, the North Mississippi Narcotics Task Unit and the bureau ended
an eight-month investigation of an alleged ice trafficking ring working in
Lee, Tippah and Union counties. Agents arrested two independent truck
drivers from Ripley with the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service and
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Larry Wayne Bass, 44, was arrested Monday at a parking lot in Tupelo for
allegedly delivering 2 grams (.07 ounces) of ice to agents. Agents made
eight undercover drug buys from Bass, Harless said.

Bass is charged with two counts of sale of meth, transfer of meth and
possession of meth with intent to distribute. He is in the Lee County jail
on a $100,000 bond. He faces four counts of sale of meth in Tippah and
Union counties.

Ronnie Bass, 39, who agents said was in his brother Larry's Chevrolet
pickup during Monday's bust, was charged with possession of meth with
intent to distribute. Agents allegedly seized another three grams (roughly
.11 ounces) of ice in open view in the truck, Harless said.

Ronnie Bass posted a $5,000 bond Wednesday. If convicted, the brothers face
up to 30 years on each count, Harless said.

Ice is made by the pound with methamphetamine hydrochloride in super labs
in Arizona, California, Oklahoma and Texas.

For all last year, the bureau investigated one ice case in Gulfport, one
case in Hattiesburg and five cases in Tupelo. In the first 28 days of 2002
alone, agents investigated three cases in Tupelo.

Local dealers make homemade meth, which resembles a sugar cookie, with
store-bought cold medication and dozens of toxic chemicals, Harless said.

In rural George County, meth cases dominate the court docket, said Keith
Miller, an assistant district attorney in south Mississippi.

"We've had a huge increase in the past two years," Miller said. "Drug
agents have busted lots of labs here. Everybody is doing what they can to
shut them down."

As of July 2001, it's a felony to possess precursors with the intent of
making meth. The new state law proved an excellent tool as precursor
arrests went up tenfold in the last quarter of 2001, said Lt. Chuck Bunn,
commander of the North Mississippi Narcotics Task Unit.

"Imagine being inside a trailer with a meth cook using ammonia and ether,"
Bunn said. "The phone rings or the door opens and sets off a spark that
blows the whole place up."

Smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed, meth is an odorless stimulant that
can keep a person awake for several days. The sleeplessness makes them
aggressive, nervous and paranoid. Some meth users even scratch themselves
bloody trying to remove imaginary crawling bugs, Parker said. Another
telltale sign of meth's destructiveness is the growing number of child
abuse and neglect cases among strung-out parents, said Dennis Farris, an
assistant district attorney in north Mississippi. He estimates that
probably half of his 350 drug prosecutions in 2001 were meth-related.

"The agents are running ragged trying to keep up with it," Farris said.
"It's like a revolving door. We arrest one person with meth, and another
takes their place."

The bureau was awarded a $997,000 grant from the Department of Justice in
2001 to fight meth and expects $619,000 for the coming year, Pitts said.

"We'll have to look at this trend with ice and adapt and shift our
enforcement techniques," Pitts said. "It's just as much a problem as the
homemade meth. With either one, we'll have a crime problem."