SPEED COMES ROARING BACK

With ingredients widely available and easy-to-make recipes posted on the
Net, meth labs are popping up everywhere

Speed is back.

Police are warning that the brain-destroying drug methamphetamine has come
roaring into B.C. and is now rivalling ecstasy in popularity.

Once the choice of bikers and losers - speed freaks - in the '60s,
methamphetamine has reappeared in a new, easy-to-make form.

Brought from California, through Oregon and Washington, by motorcycle gangs
and Mexican crime families, the drug has spread throughout the U.S. and
into B.C.

"It's gone absolutely mainstream," said RCMP Cpl. Scott Rintoul, with the
E-Division drug awareness program.

And, as in the U.S., the drug is now being made locally.

"It's going to get worse because you don't need the Colombians and the
Mexican cartels to bring it in," said Rintoul. "It can be made right here.
All the ingredients can be picked up locally, and it's all legal."

Rintoul said the drug is extremely popular in the rave scene, almost on a
par with ecstasy. Known as jib, or meth, some users take it with ecstasy
or other drugs. Others progress from ecstasy to meth.

It has become so prevalent that the price has dropped to $10 for a street
package of a tenth of a gram from $15 six months ago.

"We're arresting street dealers carrying both cocaine and methamphetamine
because the demand is there," said Rintoul.

Vancouver police Insp. Kash Heed said officers have noticed "a marked
increase" in methamphetamine in downtown clubs. He fears the big meth wave
that swept through many U.S. cities to devastating effect will hit here.

"I'm very worried," he said. "I'm very concerned."

More addictive than crack cocaine, methamphetamine can produce anxiety,
psychosis, paranoia and depression, which often leads to violence. Police
are finding dealers carrying guns.

Meth also causes malnutrition and memory loss and it can damage the heart,
lungs, liver, and cause brain damage similar to Alzheimer's, stroke, and
epilepsy.

Smoked, snorted, injected or swallowed, it lasts up to 12 hours, unlike
crack's 20-minute high.

"Bobby" knows all about it - he spent many a lost weekend attending raves
doing ecstasy. But it wasn't long before ecstasy's buzz became a muffled fizz.

"I got bored with it," he said recently. "I ended up going to something
harder, meth."

The attraction was clear.

"It's cheaper. You don't have to use as much, and it lasts way longer.
Your energy levels are just amazingly high," he said.

Which you need, the 18-year-old said, if you're going to party from 10 at
night to seven in the morning, the typical rave times, and then party some
more.

And more.

"The people that party more often tend to do meth more than e," he said.

Bobby, whose full name can't be published because he was busted as a young
offender for selling meth, took the drug for about a year and sold it for
about four months.

He remembers the downside to meth.

"When you come down it's probably one of the worst things you'll
experience," he said. "Some days I would sleep for two days after doing
it. I wouldn't be able to eat. I wouldn't even feel human - I'd feel like
a chemical."

Bobby, at six feet two inches, weighed only 145 pounds while using. He's
now at 165 pounds - and getting his memory back.

"When you can't remember your friends' names, when you start forgetting the
little things, you realize you're becoming an idiot and you have to stop,"
said Bobby.

He said going straight was not too difficult, but many of his rave-going
friends are still addicted. Some almost don't function.

Victoria RCMP Cpl. Doug Culver said the drug is one of the most addictive
he's seen.

"There are recreational cocaine users," said Culver. "There is no such
thing with methamphetamine. It very quickly becomes a downhill slide.

Culver is the former head of the clandestine drug lab team in Vancouver and
now works on the Victoria team. He has seen the number of labs busted by
police escalate from eight three years ago to 20 in 1999 and 30 last year.

Back in the '60s and '70s, the production of meth was a dangerous, involved
process. The new methods are much simpler, but just as dangerous. The
fumes are toxic and the ingredients potentially explosive.

The labs are springing up throughout B.C., using ingredients that are
easily obtainable in Canada. The recipes can be found on the Net.

"Most of the labs we get are on the large side," said Culver, adding that
biker gangs are involved but do not necessarily control manufacture and
distribution.

Busting a lab is a costly and dangerous undertaking. Police must be
outfitted in full protective gear, the fire department is often on standby
and even social agencies may be called if children are present.

"It takes a long time to clean one out," said Culver. "A basic lab in a
home takes eight to 12 hours. It's a long drawn-out process.

"They are very toxic for the member going in to dismantle them, and they
create toxic byproducts. For about every pound of methamphetamine that is
produced there's five or six pounds of waste material. A lot of it goes
down the drain or into the public landfill sites. An average lab costs
about $10,000 to dismantle."

In Canada, possession of methamphetamine is a criminal offence with a
maximum jail term of three years. Traffickers face up to 10 years.

Heed said new laws, similar to U.S. regulations, are needed to limit the
amount of legal ingredients used in meth manufacturing that an individual
can possess.

A vehicle was recently stopped in Vancouver's West End that contained
500,000 cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth
manufacturing.

"In all likelihood this was destined for some methamphetamine lab," said
Heed, adding that profit drives the meth explosion.

"The profit margin far exceeds the profit margin for cocaine, heroin or
marijuana. One tablet, which sells for $10 costs eight cents to make."

Culver, meanwhile, said police have learned from the U.S. experience.

"It's a very scary drug. Methamphetamine is evil."

A warning from Washington

Roger Lake has seen the devastation methamphetamine can wreck on society.

Lake, president of the Washington State Narcotics Investigator's
Association, offers this dire warning: "We're getting our butt kicked by
amphetamine and you've got to do something and it's going to be expensive."

Methamphetamine burst like a lethal drug bomb on Washington state in the
mid-'90s, catching police and legislators unawares.

Washington dealt with 1,454 meth-lab busts or dumps last year. By October
of this year there were 1,600. There were only 60 in 1995.

Treatment also soared. In 1993, 486 people were admitted for meth
treatment. In 2000, that number had increased to 5,850.

The state now spends $1.5 million a year just cleaning up the bulk
chemicals dumped or found in labs, said David Byers, of the state Ecology
Department.

"We couldn't go to oil spills, we couldn't do hazardous-material spills. We
were just getting consumed in drug labs," he said.

The first wave of meth came from California and Oregon, trafficked by
Mexican crime families. That pipeline is still evident, but the state is
also flooded with small-time crooks - known as "Beavis and Butthead"
operations - producing the drug in their homes for their own consumption
and to sell.

"The new recipe is no more difficult to make than chocolate-chip cookies,"
said Lake.

But vastly more addictive.

"They will forsake everything for methamphetamine."

"Meth has taken over from crack cocaine as the drug of choice in the state.
And its effects run through all society," Lake said.

"The entire governmental services has to work as a team to take care of the
methamphetamine problem," said Lake, adding that the cost is huge.

"It can overwhelm government."