METH LABS BOOMING IN CALIFORNIA

Along the country roads off Highway 99, it is plain to see why the Central
Valley calls itself the nation's fruit basket. Rising from some of the
richest soil in the world, disciplined rows of fig and almond trees give
way to orange and lemon groves, grape and cherry orchards and bushy lettuce
and cabbage plants, as far as the eye can see.

But hidden on this soil, in abandoned barns and farmhouses, hundreds of
laboratories are churning out illegal methamphetamine, the highly addictive
stimulant Barry R. McCaffrey, the former federal drug czar, has called "the
worst drug that has ever hit America.''

In the past few years, the Central Valley has become so inundated with
methamphetamine laboratories - many of them run by Mexican crime families -
the Drug Enforcement Administration has labeled it a "source nation'' for
the drug.

Other states, particularly Washington, Missouri and Iowa, also have
significant problems with methamphetamine laboratories.

But 97 percent of the so-called "superlabs'' that can be traced to Mexican
drug operations are in California, law enforcement officials say.

Government officials consider methamphetamine the fastest-growing illegal
drug in this country, feeding an epidemic of addiction they say rivals that
of heroin and cocaine over the past few decades.

"It's been growing tremendously in the last five or six years,'' said Joe
Keefe, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration. "In
1996, we looked at methamphetamine trafficking by the Mexican nationals and
had 60 investigations. In the last couple of months, we had over 800.''

The organizations have also expanded their marketing all over the country,
he said, such that methamphetamine produced in California can be bought on
the street in Portland, Maine.

But the impact is felt acutely here as the clandestine laboratories poison
the Central Valley's soil with byproducts and tax the combined resources of
special squads from dozens of law enforcement agencies.

Officials also have expressed particular concerns about children who live
in or near the laboratories and are exposed to dangerous fumes.

In the past decade, officials say, methamphetamine production has surged in
the Central Valley.

In 1999, authorities seized 261 laboratories in nine of the valley's 17
counties, triple the 73 seized seven years before.

But the cartels, officials say, see the raids simply as the price of
business. When a laboratory is raided or found accidentally, the operation
finds another barn or house.

"We keep busting them,'' said William Ruzzamenti, a DEA special agent. "But
they keep setting up shop.''