SECRET DRUG LABORATORIES SPROUT UP ACROSS CANADA

The one curious thing neighbours noticed about a quiet home on 21st Street
East in Calgary's Riverbend neighbourhood was that its two Volkswagens were
always parked on the driveway and never in the garage.

About 10 days ago, Samantha Galpin, who lives nearby, found out why.

She came home from work to find the house surrounded by emergency crews in
white suits and goggles, fire trucks, police cars, an ambulance and a van
with Hazardous Materials marked on its side.

Her quiet, 30-something neighbour, who occasionally let local youngsters
swim in his pool, was, police say, running a methamphetamine lab.

Every room of the large, rented house, which is just metres from neighbours
on each side, was littered with evidence of manufacturing "meth," a highly
refined form of speed that is considered more powerful than crack cocaine
and easily as addictive, according to Calgary Police Services drug expert
Detective Pat Tetley.

Calgary's first methamphetamine laboratory seizure of the year had all the
hallmarks of what is becoming a Canadian scourge. According to Det. Tetley,
that scourge amounts to domestic labs cooking up popular synthetic highs
such as ecstasy and methamphetamine using ingredients that are easily and
legally purchased at small chemical-supply companies, health-food stores
and pharmacies.

The increase in clandestine labs here is fuelled by heightened demand for
designer drugs, the lure of easy money and the legal availability -- and
cheap price -- of all the ingredients needed to cook up a batch of drugs in
Canada. As a result, everyone from inveterate criminals to university
students is getting in on the act, and one man has died already this year
when the volatile chemicals he was using to make methamphetamine blew up
his lab.

Last year, more than 30 labs were investigated by Health Canada's
drug-analysis units in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. All five of
the clandestine labs investigated in Quebec in 1999 produced the popular
rave drug ecstasy, an amphetamine-based hallucinogen. And in British
Columbia, the majority of the more than 20 labs investigated last year were
cooking up methamphetamine.

Canada's free market for what are known as chemical precursors -- the
ingredients of designer drugs -- is "a national embarrassment," according
to Det. Tetley, and it hasn't gone unnoticed by U.S. authorities.

"I frequently talk to colleagues in California where meth has taken over.
They keep asking when Canada is going to get legislation on chemicals
available here," Det. Tetley said.

Are U.S. drug-makers sourcing their chemicals up here?

"They buy it here legally," said Doug Carruthers, an Edmonton-based RCMP
officer. "They are buying van loads."

In fact, officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were in
Ottawa all last week meeting with drug experts from the RCMP and Health
Canada on the precursor-chemical situation in Canada.

The DEA won't acknowledge that they are putting pressure on Canadian
authorities to stop the flow, but Canadian drug experts have received the
message loud and clear.

"I think we know what [the DEA's] stand is," Leo Vaillant, a drug-analysis
expert with the RCMP in Ottawa, said before attending the meeting last
week. "We are trying to resolve any shortcomings we have by fast-tracking
this issue as best we can."

The issue is availability. In the United States, where methamphetamine has
overtaken crack as the biggest problem drug in several large cities, every
purchase of a cold, allergy or asthma medication that contains more than a
minimum threshold of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine -- either can be used to
make methamphetamine -- is reported to the DEA.

Safrole, a licorice-scented derivative of sassafras oil used in perfumes,
flavourings and even pesticides, is the main ingredient of ecstasy. It too
is a controlled substance in the United States. The DEA further regulates a
growing number of solvents and flammable substances used to make illicit
drugs. Selling these substances with "reckless disregard" for their
potential illicit use can result in a $250,000 fine in the United States.

But in Canada, those same ingredients can be purchased with impunity by anyone.

Here, myriad over-the-counter cold remedies, antihistamines and
decongestants contain pseudoephedrine or ephedrine. Health-food products
and diet supplements contain ephedra. A simple reaction -- using chemicals
such as red phosphorous, iodine and industrial-grade solvents that are also
widely available from chemical-supply companies -- converts any of these
into methamphetamine, an addictive street drug that can produce a powerful
six-hour high from a $5 "point" or hit.

A couple of years ago, an Alberta man wanted in both Canada and the United
States for making methamphetamine purchased 175 kilograms of antihistamine
in six months from a Drumheller, Alta., pharmacist. The pharmacist
testified he believed what the man told him: that he was using it to fatten
fish in a fish-farming operation.

Strewn throughout the house recently raided in Riverbend, Calgary police
found recipes downloaded from the Internet and instructional videos as well
as caustic soda, solvents and iodine crystals. The white ceiling of the
garage had turned pink from red phosphorous, a pyrotechnic chemical used to
cook the illicit drug. And there were more than 70 bottles of natural
supplements containing ephedra.

In the suspect's master bedroom, amid toxic fumes that had left
45-centimetre yellowish stains seeping from the ceiling down the walls, 28
grams of recently cooked up meth was drying near the bedroom closet where
the lab was set up.

While ecstasy labs have popped up in the east -- Toronto police recently
stated they were aware of at least half a dozen underground labs making the
drug in and around the city -- methamphetamine appears to be a burgeoning
business in the western provinces. Lab activity there ranges from "a Bic
lighter, some ephedrine and a couple of chemicals in a back alley," in Det.
Tetley's words, to sophisticated operations in unassuming homes and
industrial parks where litres of dangerous chemicals are stored.

"We've seen a lot of action," said Richard Lang, head of Health Canada's
clandestine-lab unit in Vancouver, where more than 20 labs were raided last
year. "Last year, we were up 100 per cent over the previous year. And this
year, we're on the same track. We've had eight laboratory seizures since
January. Five were making speed, two were making ecstasy and the other was
making magic mushrooms."

When the ingredients are easy to get, the lure of easy money from cooking
up a batch of the designer drugs has not been lost on seasoned criminals
and young entrepreneurs alike. Making the drugs domestically, rather than
importing, means avoiding border troubles and larger profits.

"Ecstasy costs pennies to make," said Rob Cullen, a York Regional Police
constable. Meanwhile, its street value runs from $20 to $50 per pill.

The same goes for methamphetamine, which is even easier to make. According
to Mr. Lang, six grams of pseudoephedrine can be manufactured into four
grams of methamphetamine, which sells for about $80 an ounce. (Some
antihistamines contain as much as 60 milligrams of pseudoephedrine per
tablet and are sold in bottles of 100.)

"So for a $12 bottle, you can realize $300," he said.

Those economics are not lost on young people. In fact, in the past three
years, two university students -- one at the University of Windsor and
another at the University of Waterloo -- have been convicted for running
large ecstasy and methamphetamine labs capable of producing millions of
dollars worth of the drugs. A third University of Western Ontario honours
chemistry student was caught by police on the verge of realizing his first
batch of ecstasy in the basement of his townhouse, using chemicals and
equipment taken from the institution. The neighbours complained of the fumes.

The opportunists are not just putting their freedom on the line, they are
risking their lives and the lives of those around them. The chemicals used
to create methamphetamine and ecstasy are volatile solvents that create
exothermic reactions -- or make their own heat.

In other words, the cooks can get cooked. That is what happened to a
48-year-old man from Surrey, B.C., last month, when his methamphetamine
lab, located near a new subdivision, blew up while he made the drug. He
died from the injuries.

A new process of making methamphetamine called the Nazi method, popular in
the U.S. Midwest because it is fast, has just begun to make inroads in
Canada and is a worry to police. Constable Cullen calls it "six different
ways to kill yourself" because it is more explosive than other methods.

The noxious vapours created by any method of making designer drugs are also
a threat. Det. Tetley said the suspect in the recent Riverbend laboratory
seizure was in "grave condition" because he was living so close to the
chemicals.

And innocent Canadians are increasingly put in danger by labs that spring
up in residential areas. In November, police raided a Mississauga
laboratory producing several designer drugs located on the second floor of
a 20-story condominium building. It took agents 12 hours to sample all of
the chemicals spread throughout the 800-square-foot unit. All the experts
agree that cooks have little concern for their own safety or those around
them. Clandestine labs have to be treated as hazardous-waste sites and can
cost thousands of dollars to clean up.

Still, the Canadian companies that supply the ingredients to those who make
illicit drugs have not been compelled to report any of their sales
activities to drug-enforcement officials.

But Randy Smith, head of Toronto police's year-old clandestine-lab unit,
said many companies choose to co-operate with the police.

Larger companies have the resources to turn away suspicious clients. BDH
Chemicals in Toronto, a large chemical company owned by the German
pharmaceutical firm Merck, (which was responsible for the discovery of
ecstasy nearly 90 years ago) sells most of its products, including
ephedrine, through distributors.

General manager Ken Lewis said only once in the 12 years he has worked for
the company have authorities contacted him about a BDH customer.

It is a bigger challenge for smaller firms to keep their products out of
the hands of criminals. Pumpuii Energy Products Inc. of Thunder Bay, which
offers a free bottle of ephedrine for those who join its Web site mailing
list, won't make large sales of its products to individuals, according to
sales manager Adrien Ladouceur. It also adds binders to some of its
ephedrine products to discourage illicit use.

"We're always worried about where our products go," he said.

And yet clandestine-lab operators in Canada don't have problems when it
comes to finding ingredients.

"The companies are under no obligation to report who their customers are,
even if they have suspicions," Constable Cullen said. "They are under no
obligations to tell police. They make their money and they are on their
merry way."

As a result, lab busts across the country follow a familiar pattern. Last
week, police in the wealthy, conservative city of London, Ont., used a
battering ram to break down the door of a home where they suspected an
ecstasy lab was being operated. They found litres of solvents and precursor
chemicals inside. A neighbour described the couple renting the home as
nice, quiet people.