Meth: An Insidiuous Poison, Part 4

NEW STRAINS OF METH BOMBARD AREA

As soon as police get one type under control, cooks adopt another,
officers say.

After years of seeing only the methamphetamine recipe reformulated in
the Ozarks, Greene County deputies have been seeing a new strain
erupting in backwoods sheds, the basements of rural homes and the
beds of pickup trucks.

They call it "Red P," named for the main ingredient in the drug, red
phosphorus.

Authorities say the drug is becoming more popular in Greene County
and remaining popular in neighboring areas because the
anhydrous-based meth is getting harder to make. That's because that
recipe's main ingredient - anhydrous ammonia - is becoming harder to
obtain. Law enforcement officials have been cracking down on thieves
who have been using the cover of darkness to steal the chemical from
refrigerator companies and crop farmers who use it to irrigate their
fields.

"It's increasing enough it's got our attention," said Greene County
Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Farrell, supervisor of the department's drug unit.
Although Farrell said he hadn't seen the Red P method in the county
until this year, he said he has already seen the formula as much as
the more traditional method.

Besides anhydrous-based and red phosphorus, the other
nationally-known meth formula is P2P. Though it produces a purer
strain of the drug, it requires elaborate setups and takes longer to
produce.

The recipe for Red P is not unknown in southwest Missouri.
Neighboring counties have seen it for years, even before they busted
labs using the anhydrous-based concoction. The strain has been
especially common in Newton and Jasper Counties, where a California
man started sharing the recipe in the mid-1990s.

Until March, Greene County had been immune to it. Cooks here
preferred the anhydrous method, the only recipe they knew well enough
to brew a batch in a couple of hours using ingredients they could buy
at Wal-Mart.

Now the Red P method is catching on, with Greene County busting a
number of labs since the first of the year. Two examples:

On June 4, a Greene County man was arrested after authorities found a
large red phosphorous lab at his home in the 3400 block of South
Leewood Avenue.

On March 13, a man and a woman were arrested after authorities found
one of the first Red P labs in the area. Inside the home was
elaborate glassware and counter-surveillance equipment.

The Red P method has been on the rise in the Ozarks even though the
ingredients are harder to obtain and the task of making it can be far
more arduous than the anhydrous method. Production time can be
considerably longer, as much as an hour longer per batch to cook,
because ingredients must be heated. Also, cooks in the Ozarks can't
obtain cans of red phosphorous as they can in Kansas City, where the
recipe has been prevalent in past years.

It's here, said Lawrence County Sheriff Doug Senecker, that ingenuity
comes into play.

A few years ago when Red P got bad in Lawrence County, he and his
deputies went to other states to inform people about the drug. They
wanted retailers to make it harder for cooks to get their hands on
things like red phosphorous and iodine crystals.

"But the dopers, true to form, have come up with other ways,"
Senecker said. If a cook doesn't have iodine crystals, they use
liquid iodine and convert it into crystals.

Cooks also buy matches by the bundle, often spending hours stripping
off the tips.

"These people, most of them, don't have jobs," said Farrell. "What
else do they have to do with their time?"

So what does the future hold? Some indications point to even more
kinds of meth. Officials in Jasper County say they have already begun
to see a substitute for red phosphorous, hypo-phosphorous acid, which
is completely clear. The new ingredient has puzzled deputies at least
twice at the sites of meth labs.

"I think, well God, this is what it has to be, but there's no red
phosphorous, everything else is there," said Jasper County Sheriff's
Captain Tony Coleman.

If the past spread of the anhydrous recipe is any indication,
authorities believe they'll be dealing with new strains for years to
come. They're already shocked by the speed with which Red P is
spreading, and the anhydrous method has already spread.

"They've shown two friends and they've shown two friends. It
absolutely 100-percent amazes me," Coleman said. "It seems to be
exploding and doesn't seem to stop."