METHAMPHETAMINE IT'S THE NEW ILLEGAL DRUG OF CHOICE

Meth: Easy To Make, Easy To Get, More Of It Than Ever

Rick Piper was getting ready to fertilize before harvest when he saw the
damage to his anhydrous ammonia tanker. The hoses were cut and a makeshift
funnel and rags were tossed nearby.

The tanker was the target of thieves desperate to get the fertilizer, a key
ingredient in methamphetamine.

"This piece of equipment was right next to our house," said Piper's
19-year-old daughter Heidi. "It's just out of control. They did all kinds
of damage to the equipment trying to get the anhydrous out."

On the second day of harvest, Piper operated the combine, cutting wheat in
a field less than a mile from his house, when something caught his eye.

It was the remains of a meth lab - a water jug used to mix the drug, liquor
and beer bottles of leftover materials, and a black T-shirt, stiff as a
board and reeking of ammonia from being used to filter a chemical mixture
and trap meth.

Piper moved the hazardous substances a few feet away, got back in the
combine and kept harvesting. He would call the sheriff's office later.

Heidi Piper said her privacy has been violated. She's trying to convince
her father to invest in sensor lights for their house and put gates on
their farm roads.

That will have to wait, though, until harvest is over.

Drug of choice

It's a new meth world and the makers and dealers of illegal substances are
gaining the upper hand in the war against the drug.

The stimulant is the drug of choice in northeast Oregon, steadily
increasing in popularity during the 1990s until now, when it's found on
Umatilla County suspects more than marijuana.

It's easier to make meth now and there's more of it in northeast Oregon
than ever before, police said. And because of high supply, the price is
dropping, said Sgt. Greg Sherman, of Oregon State Police in Pendleton.

Most of the street meth in the area is made in super labs in Central
California and Mexico, and driven to northeast Oregon.

But methamphetamine laboratories also are booming here - Umatilla County
has one of the highest rates of meth labs in the state - due to the
availability of anhydrous ammonia, the Northwest's most common fertilizer.

Regardless of where it's from, meth is easy to get.

Rick, an addict in treatment in Pendleton, said he could score meth in 30
minutes.

"You can get it anywhere here," said John, another recovering meth addict.

"It's easy," said Mike, an Irrigon addict. "All you have to do is ask young
people if they party."

Labs increasing

There weren't any meth labs in northeast Oregon from Gilliam to Wallowa
counties just five years ago, according to the Western States Information
Network, a federally mandated law enforcement group. Now, patrol officers
are stumbling across labs in the trunks of cars and duffel bags during
traffic stops.

It's a new type of meth lab called the "Nazi method," because German
soldiers supposedly made meth that way during World War II.

Anhydrous ammonia is a key ingredient and meth makers go to farms and
fertilizer operations at night to steal it in five gallon propane tanks.
They often end up making the drug in nearby fields.

"It hit over here starting last year, and it's increasing more and more,"
said Det. Mike Schultz, of the Oregon State Police in Hermiston and BENT,
the Blue Mountain Enforcement Narcotics Team.

In 2000, Umatilla County officials found eight meth labs. They've already
found 12 this year, and the area's number of meth lab incidents trails only
heavily populated Multnomah, Washington, Lane and Josephine counties.

The Nazi method is simple, portable and batches can be cooked quickly in 30
minutes or less.

Common ingredients besides anhydrous ammonia are lithium batteries and
ephedrine, often found in cold and diet pills.

A lab can be set up and gone in less than two hours. But that's only if the
yields are kept small, usually from a quarter-ounce to an ounce - enough
for the meth maker's own stash and a few sales to cover his habit. But
that's chump change to a major dealer.

A dangerous game

The Nazi method may be easy, but it isn't exactly safe.

People who play with volatile farm chemicals can get horribly burned, and
the public sometimes is put at danger by anhydrous ammonia thefts, as well.

Piper said meth makers were "crazy" to steal anhydrous ammonia.

"It doesn't even seem worth it to me," she added. "They're risking their
lives. If that stuff gets on their skin, it boils at negative 300 degrees.
It will burn you to the bone."

Three people learned that the hard way the morning of July 10 near La Grande.

Armand Macy, 21, of Baker City, Justin Cooper, 20, of Ontario, and Mandy
Crammer, 19, of Fruitland Idaho, traveled Interstate-84 after visiting a
farm on Highway 11 and filling two propane tanks with anhydrous ammonia,
said Sgt. Scott Moore of the OSP in La Grande.

The safety release valves of the tanks were taken off, though, and replaced
by a bolt that didn't allow pressure to escape. As they drove, the
anhydrous ammonia began to get warm and expand.

East of La Grande, one of the tanks ruptured, engulfing the car in
hazardous chemical vapors.

"They all received serious burns," Moore said. "Two scorched their lungs
with the chemical and will suffer the effects of it all their lives."

Macy and Cooper were taken by helicopter to a Portland hospital. Macy was
discharged after a week of treatment for burns, as was Crammer, who was
taken to a La Grande hospital.

Cooper still is in a hospital bed in serious condition, with an inhalation
injury and burns covering 20 percent of his body.

Earlier in the year, thieves hit McGregor's, a fertilizer company in Adams,
but left the anhydrous ammonia valve open when they left. Police closed
Highway 11 so motorists wouldn't get hit by vapors.

If there was enough anhydrous ammonia released, it could form a cloud with
the potential to cause serious lung and eye irritation.

The leftover chemicals from lab sites are problems as well.

"There are some nasty chemicals that go into the process of making meth,"
said Lt. Darin Helman of the Pendleton OSP. And then those nasty chemicals
get mixed together.

Vapors from leftover chemicals can burn the lungs and eyes, and muratic
acid, which can burn the skin, is frequently found in used meth making
materials.

Because of those dangers, police urge the public to report suspected meth
paraphernalia, because cleaning the mess can be dangerous.

If there's a lab, police call specially trained hazardous materials teams,
certified by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, to take care
of it.

It costs between $3,000 and $5,000 just to clean a site. The Oregon
Department of Environmental Quality and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
initially provide the funds, but often will try and recover them from
property owners.

Farmers, however, are usually given leniency if a lab is found in their
fields, according to BENT officers.

Old-style labs are much more toxic than Nazi-method labs. But houses that
have Nazi-method meth labs often are declared uninhabitable.

Fertilizer theft

Anhydrous ammonia thefts don't cost farmers very much, only a few dollars.
But a lot is going into the effort to stop them and lawmakers just
increased the penalty for the crime.

Meth makers routinely steal about five gallons of the ammonia from the
5,000 and 10,000 gallon tanks at area farms, a loss of about $5. That
happens to fertilizer companies like Wilbur-Ellis about twice a month.

"They take so little amounts, you can't even measure it," said Tom Sundin
of Wilbur-Ellis in Adams.

Police now regularly patrol fertilizer suppliers and also set up stings to
bust thieves hitting anhydrous ammonia tanker trucks in fields. Patrol
officers also are being trained to spot meth labs.

The Oregon Legislature is addressing the issue as well, and unanimously
passed a bill this session to increase penalties for anhydrous ammonia
thefts, adding the fertilizer to a list of precursor chemicals.

Starting in October, someone who illegally possesses anhydrous ammonia
faces a class A misdemeanor. Before, it was likely only third-degree theft,
a class C misdemeanor.

"If law enforcement could show it was with intent to manufacture a
controlled substance - methamphetamine - it's a class B felony," said Terry
Witt, executive director of Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an
agricultural lobbying group.

The agricultural industry is helping out, too.

"Farmers just don't flat like it," said Pete Fretwell, spokesman for the
Far West Agribusiness Association in Spokane. "They are rugged
individualists who are pretty darn proud of what they do. They just flat
take umbrage that someone is taking the product that they've used for half
a century to feed their neighbors and taking that and using it to expose
kids to drugs."

So now, $25 bulletproof locks are being put on the valves of the anhydrous
ammonia tanks.

One fertilizer company even put a motion sensor and video camera to catch
crooks who regularly hit a Walla Walla tanker.

"They're actually doing real well at arresting people," Fretwell said.

Finding answers

Solving these problems by making anhydrous ammonia harder to steal is one
thing. Making the chemical useless in manufacturing methamphetamine is another.

Scientists at Iowa State University are having success with a method of
putting compounds into anhydrous ammonia that will inhibit the
methamphetamine reaction.

They've identified three potential compounds and are now testing them to
make sure that they don't have negative effects on the soil.

Eliminating anhydrous ammonia as a precursor chemical will only make a
small dent in the meth availability here, though.

"If we could completely keep anhydrous from being usable, you would still
have a substantial meth supply," Fretwell said.

On July 19, BENT arrested two suspects after buying a pound of meth from
them in a sting operation at Hermiston Plaza.

Police eventually seized three pounds of what they believe is "red p" meth,
or red phosphorous meth, worth about $150,000 if cut and sold in small amounts.

The red p meth often is created in superlabs in central California and
Mexico and driven up I-5 and over I-84, and then up tributaries such as I-82.

"A pound of meth is a hell of a lot of meth. That can get a lot of people
high," said Det. Jim Littlefield of the Hermiston Police Department and BENT.

A typical user amount is only a quarter gram, which contains a couple of
lines, each enough for a four-to six-hour high. There are 28 grams in an
ounce and 16 ounces in a pound.

BENT usually only busts one to two major distributors a year, in long- term
investigations that can last months, said Littlefield. But even that seems
to be increasing.

In April, BENT arrested a distributor who was in possession of 4 pounds,
and in December, they made an arrest involving a 5 pound seizure.

The price of the drug is also decreasing.

"In 1995, if we wanted to buy a pound we were buying for $11,000," Sherman
said. "Last week, it was $5,200."

Kyle Odegard can be reached at 1-800-522-0255 (ext. 1-248 after hours) or
by e-mail at kodegard@eastoregonian.com.

Hilding did not even get to rest on Father's Day as his family told him
they were doing something special: Help construct the Pioneer Park play
structure.

"I guess I didn't mind so much," Hilding said. "Yeah, there are times when
I just want to sit around and be a couch potato, and that was one of those
days, but I think that ultimately what I did was far more rewarding."

Hilding said that even if he wanted to be a couch potato, he has a problem
that will not allow him to.

"People always ask me if I'll help with something, and I just can't seem to
turn them down," Hilding said.