THE METH PLAGUE

One bottle was labeled "Liquid Fire."

A 5-foot-tall tank stood nearby, filled with anhydrous ammonia, a
hazardous chemical.

At the far end of the line of ingredients, a Vlassic dill pickle jar
held an orangeish-red liquid, darker in color on the top.

Meth oil, the police officers called it.

They hauled the products -- the makings of an illegal methamphetamine
laboratory -- out of a wooded area adjacent to a trailer home, where
they had been stored beneath a tarp.

The number of labs producing methamphetamine, a highly addictive
stimulant, has been on the rise nationwide for the last several
years, and has recently spread to Mobile, authorities said.

"It gives you a whole new impression when you hear the word lab,"
said Capt. Rassie Smith, who heads the Mo bile Police Department's
special investigations section, as he looked over the goods from this
month's raid.

Police had received an anonymous tip about the trailer, located off
Carol Plantation Road in west Mobile County, outside Mobile's city
limits but within its police jurisdiction.

It occupied the farthest lot of the trailer park, at the end of a
road pocked with holes.

Three child-size bicycles leaned against the cinder blocks that
supported the front porch. Two cats skulked around, winding their way
between the chemicals and appliances on the ground.

This was a "pretty complete lab," one officer said.

The spread of methamphetamines:

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration classifies
methamphetamine -- also known as crank, crystal meth, speed and ice
- -- as "the fastest-growing drug threat in America today" on its Web
site.

But in comparison with other regions of the country, the phenomenon
has only reached this area recently, according to local law
enforcement agencies. Smith said that by the end of summer, Mobile
Police had already worked four times as many labs as they had last
year.

He said his department receives information about illegal labs on a
daily basis.

"We're trying to play catch up," he added.

The Mobile County Sheriff's Department reported a similar increase.
Chad Tucker, the department's spokesman, said local deputies did not
encounter any clandestine labs last year.

This year, deputies had raided 26 labs as of August, he said.

Nationwide, the DEA seized 2,155 meth labs in 1999, up from 299 in
1995, the agency's Web site reports.

Making meth:

Nearly all of the materials needed to produce methamphetamine are
legal and are found in household products, and recipes for cooking
the drug can be found on the Internet. A search by a Mobile Register
reporter on a popular Web engine turned up at least three sites
containing methamphetamine recipes.

Ephedrine is a key ingredient in the process, but because it's a
controlled substance, it's difficult to obtain, the Koch Crime
Institute Web site reports. Lab operators -- sometimes referred to as
chemists or cooks -- turn instead to pseudoephedrine, contained in
Sudafed and similar medications.

The chemists extract the ephedrine from the cold medication, then add
anhydrous ammonia, lithium metal and Ethyl ether, according to a law
enforcement training guide compiled by a Mobile Police narcotics
officer. The filtered version of this liquid mixture is what the
officers call "meth oil."

"It amazes me that they take this stuff made like that and put it in
their bodies," Smith said.

The characteristic smell of ammonia, as well as the strong odors
produced by the cooking process, leads many lab operators to locate
in rural areas, where they are less likely to be detected,
authorities said.

Methods of preparation -- "cooking" -- vary, but a Mobile police
officer said the only formula they have found locally is one known as
the Nazi method.

It earned its moniker, the officer said, because it is modeled after
a recipe used by Germans in World War II. He said both the Axis and
Allied forces gave the drug to troops to make them more alert and
aggressive.

The cooking process takes two to three hours and generates one ounce
of the drug, according to the training guide.

The drug generally costs around $1,700 per ounce, and one ounce
yields about 110 meth "hits," the Koch Crime Institute Web site
states. A Mobile Police narcotics officer verified that those prices
reflect the local market as well.

The search for evidence:

As the Mobile Police conducted the raid on the trailer home, one of
its residents returned home, driving a station wagon slowly into her
yard, accompanied by her mother.

The officers questioned the pair, who repeatedly shrugged their shoulders.

"I don't see anything here that says this is a meth lab," said the
mother, looking over the line of products the officers had pulled
from the woods.

After receiving consent to search the area, the officers combed the
home and grounds for evidence.

The trailer's owner had fashioned a makeshift office out of plywood.
Its roof was a camper shell, the kind intended for use on the bed of
a pickup.

The officers crouched their way inside the office, using flashlights
to aid them as darkness fell. A full moon rose behind the trailer.

As police searched, the resident's mother sat in the station wagon,
barely visible except for the glowing tip of her cigarette.

Smith said they didn't find any finished product at the trailer.

What's left behind:

Many of the substances involved in production are toxic or can cause
dangerous reactions.

One gallon of Ethyl ether "explodes with the intensity of five sticks
of dynamite," the guide prepared by a Mobile Police officer states.
At one stage of cooking, hydrogen-chloride gas is produced, which can
react with other elements to release hydrogen, a highly explosive gas.

Because of the chemicals used in the process, "each pound of meth
leaves behind five or six pounds of toxic waste," states the Koch
Crime Institute's Web site.

Alan Hancock, special agent with the local DEA office, said his
agency helps arrange clean-ups of the labs discovered by local
police. The clean-ups cost, on average, between $4,200 and $4,600,
Hancock said, and the money is allocated by the U.S. Congress
specifically for that purpose.

Addressing the problem:

The Alabama legislature passed a bill in September that made it
easier to prosecute those who have assembled certain combinations of
chemicals used to produce methamphetamine, according to a news
release on the Alabama attorney general's Web site.

At the Mobile raid, the offi cers said they could arrest the
residents on the basis of that new law. Later, they said the
investigation was ongoing and that arrests were pending.

The use of over-the-counter medication in the production process
prompted some local drug stores -- as well as others across the
nation -- to remove Sudafed from the shelves and house it behind the
pharmacy counter.

Jim Passereni, district manager for CVS, said in August that some of
his Mobile stores have taken that action, though he did not know how
many.

At least two Wal-Mart stores -- the Airport Boulevard and Schillinger
Road locations -- have restricted the public's access to Sudafed as
well, according to a pharmacist at the Airport Boulevard store.

Anhydrous ammonia, an agricultural fertilizer and industrial
refrigerant, is one of the more difficult meth ingredients to obtain,
though it is legal. Lab operators, who use it as a cooling agent,
often resort to stealing it, authorities said. The state has passed
legislation making it a class B felony to be in unlawful possession
of anhydrous ammonia.

Referring to recent measures that aim to prevent the drug's
manufacture, Smith said of the lab operators, "These people are
extremely inventive, and they'll come up with a way."

The dangers of the drug:

Methamphetamine, which can be snorted, smoked or injected, causes
increases in many of the body's vital functions, such as heart rate,
blood pressure, body temperature and rate of breathing.

The initial high, called the peak, comes within minutes of ingestion,
according to Virginia Guy, executive director of the local Drug
Education Council, a nonprofit agency that provides intervention and
counseling.

Many people like that first rush because "it makes them feel more
capable, more alert, more alive," Guy said.

"It's probably that euphoria" that makes the drug popular, she said.

However, high doses of methamphetamine can result in paranoia and irritability.

In fact, long-term use or high doses can bring about toxic psychosis
- -- violent or aggressive behavior -- according to the Partnership for
a Drug Free America Web site.

Smith called the drug more addictive than cocaine, and information
from the Koch Crime Institute Web site corroborates that.

Methamphetamine is metabolized more slowly by the body, the Web site
states, and its effect can last as much as ten time longer than
cocaine.

"When heavy cocaine users experience paranoia, it almost always
disappears once the binge ends," according to the Web site. But for
methamphetamine users, personality changes can persist for days, or
even weeks.

Smith said such behavior poses danger for officers who conduct raids.
In March, a Mobile County Sheriff's deputy was shot and wounded by a
suspected methamphetamine lab operator at the suspect's home. The
resident was killed in the exchange of gunfire that followed.