METHAMPHETAMINE: BATTLING THE PLAGUE

Since there's a good chance a methamphetamine lab might be coming soon to a
motel, neighborhood, or state park near you, here are some things to keep
in mind:

- -- Meth labs explode.

- -- They burn.

- -- They belch toxic fumes.

- -- They smell like cat urine.

- -- They produce a product, sometimes referred to as redneck cocaine, which
also could be used to poison rats or unclog pipes.

- -- They are not manned by Nobel prize-winning chemists.

In fact, law enforcement types routinely refer to the fly-by-night meth
mills as ``Beavis and Butthead labs.''

And, in case you've missed any of the 450 methamphetamine-related stories
in the Tulsa World in the past two years, here's a news flash: Despite
aggressive pursuit of the problem, the problem gives no sign of flagging.

The number of illicit labs discovered by authorities last year -- 781 -- is
60 times the rate of five years ago. And for every lab authorities are
lucky enough to shut down, hundreds go undetected although the public as
well as police on routine patrols are learning to spot, or smell, meth
operations. The labs, which use carcinogenic and volatile chemicals along
with over-the-counter cold remedies to make the powerful and addictive
stimulant, also pose an environmental risk and are expensive and dangerous
to clean up after.

Oklahoma ranks third in the nation, behind Arizona and Arkansas, in seized
meth labs and second, behind California, in the amount of meth seized. The
problem is so immense that a few months back Gov. Frank Keating called a
summit conference on the topic.

"Quite frankly, we don't see an end to the problem in sight," Kym Koch, a
spokeswoman for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, recently said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen Litchfield, coordinator of the federal drug
task here, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert T. Raley, a fellow drug
prosecutor, agree that the system is being overloaded in spite of
aggressive enforcement and prosecution. This year, Drug Enforcement
Administration agents have uncovered 65 illicit meth labs in the area and
the Tulsa police have found 45.

``It's a scourge. The numbers of those involved are huge. The drug is
dangerous to be around. It's an environmental problem. It's also dangerous
from a health standpoint like putting Drano in your blood veins,''
Litchfield said.

``The labs routinely blow up. Motels catch on fire. This is not a safe
process,'' Raley said, recalling one ``cooker'' who escaped with his life
but who caught the honeymoon suite of a Residence Inn hotel on fire.

Often things do not end well. In Bristow recently, a 5-week-old baby nearly
died after his parents set fire to their home, according to charges, to
destroy evidence that they were manufacturing methamphetamine. The infant
was critically ill suffering from an infection caused by toxic meth lab
vapors.

Guns and violence are standard with the meth culture. In September one
Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper was wounded and his partner killed while
trying to serve a warrant to search for methamphetamines at a rural
Sequoyah County home.

Contributing to the prevalence of methamphetamine are the huge cocaine
smuggling operations that also move large quantities of meth to the east
from California or from Texas.

Methamphetamine, once the stimulant of choice for poor, rural whites, now
is being used and distributed by a wider range of society. Recently,
several area teachers lawyers and doctors were charged with manufacturing,
distributing or possessing methamphetamine. Police are finding labs in
affluent or middle-class urban areas as well as rural locations.

Last year, Tulsa police seized 132 meth labs. The year before they
dismantled 47. In 1997, 23 labs were found. In the past few weeks, on
average, at least one lab a day has been uncovered and on March 2, five
area labs were found.

These operations are small enough to fit into the trunk of a car and can be
set up in minutes almost anywhere -- a motel bathroom, state park shelter
or an abandoned building.

Last month, 16 people, four of them police officers, were hospitalized in
Grove and received chest x-rays, breathing treatments, 20- minute showers,
lab work, fluids and medication after exposure to toxic chemicals from a
meth lab set up in a $95-a-night motel suite. In all, 29 people were
exposed to fumes after a man and a woman fled Room 205 of the Best Western
Timber Ridge Inn. Four officers searching the room found parts of a meth
lab and a vial of chemicals. The vial had broken and was spewing
potentially deadly vapors.

The proliferation of meth labs is prompting the OSBI to ask for double the
present number of 14 crime lab workers to keep up with analysis of meth
evidence. The OSBI also wants four new lab technicians and three more
fingerprint experts. The 21 employees would cost about $1.3 million a year.

The OSBI often investigates rural meth labs because many rural sheriff's
offices and police departments don't have the money or staff to handle the
cases.

The backlog at the OSBI lab is such that prosecutors must wait about 100
days for reports on meth-related evidence.

Experts say up to 30 percent of the working population has experimented
with methamphetamine, a highly-addictive stimulant that came into vogue
more than 50 years ago when the Japanese gave it to workers to increase
factory output during World War II. The drug literally scrambles the brain
and can cause cancer and congestive heart failure.

``I'm convinced that this is an epidemic,'' Litchfield said. ``It's going
to take an enormous effort to stop or to slow it down. The cost to the
individual and to society is immense.''

At a recent federal sentencing drug dealer Albert Pike Ballew, 41, received
a 26-year sentence. Raley recalled that Ballew told the judge that he'd
learned two things from methamphetamine.

`` `It can cost you your freedom and it can cost you your life.' ''

Julie DelCour is an editorial writer for the Tulsa World.