CHEMIST HIRED FOR DRUG LAB BY CHRIS BENDER

BEAUFORT -- A former State Law Enforcement Division chemist will create
Beaufort County's first drug lab and help whittle down a backlog of about
300 drug-related cases.

The Sheriff's Office hired Renita Berry on Nov. 26 to run the drug lab and
analyze cases for the Beaufort County General Sessions Court, including
some that Sheriff P.J. Tanner has said date back to 1997. Tanner expects
the new lab to be operational by Christmas.

The county drug case backlog is the result of an overburdened SLED crime
lab in Columbia, he said. Having the drug lab will allow the Sheriff's
Office to move drug cases to the Solicitor's Office in 30 days or less, he
said.

"Establishing a drug lab in-house will exponentially speed up the judicial
process for our county's drug cases," Tanner said.

Berry, 33, a police officer since 1998, also worked for the state
Department of Health and Environmental Control for four years before going
into police lab work.

Berry, who will earn a salary in the mid-$40,000 range, said drugs must be
tested to determine the exact nature of the substance. While deputies might
identify something that looks like a drug, they don't have the tools or the
training to analyze the substance.

"You need to make sure that (drug possession) is actually what you are
charging them with," Berry said. "We're always going to go by what the
science tells us, not what the substance looks like."

At SLED, Berry analyzed about 800 drug cases a year. In Beaufort County,
she expects to work about 500 to 600 cases a year.

Berry's responsibilities at SLED included testifying at trials that the
substance in question was in fact a specific type of illegal drug. Having
her at the Sheriff's Office will allow her to be available for testimony,
rather than having to schedule a chemist to come from Columbia, Tanner said.

The state has six regional drug labs: in Charleston, Greenville,
Spartanburg, Anderson and York counties, and one at the Columbia Police
Department.

The drug lab is being funded by $200,000 from the county and $100,000 from
the state Department of Public Safety.