METH LABS AN INCREASINGLY COMMON PROBLEM IN AREA

Speed kills.

While still true, the drug culture slogan about the stimulants
methamphetamines from years past is no longer limited to health and
psychological risks associated with abuse of the drug. Law enforcement
officials say meth labs can cause fires, explosions and environmental
contamination.

A change in drug market dynamics also has caused new clandestine
laboratories that make the drug to pop up across the nation, said Donnie R.
Marshall, acting administrator of the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration. Central Texas drug agents have busted six such labs in as
many months.

Methamphetamine trafficking was once the domain of biker gangs, but the
market was overtaken during the mid-1990s by Mexican drug cartels which
were already moving other types of illegal drugs.

"Seven or eight years ago, the Mexican drug trafficking organizations moved
onto the scene. They already had a distribution system for marijuana,
cocaine and heroin," Marshall said.

Marshall, an East Texas native, said the Mexican groups have caused meth to
spread from a base of primarily white, rural users in the West to more
diverse segments of society nationally.

"We've got major traffickers," Marshall said. "It's spreading from the West
and Southwest to virtually all of the country. It's a crisis almost."

A DEA meth expert, who asked not to be named because of personal safety
concerns, said there has been a dramatic increase in clandestine labs, 97
percent to 99 percent of which make speed, one street name of
methamphetamine. Other labs make drugs such as crack cocaine or GHB, known
as the "liquid date-rape" drug.

The DEA seized 118 labs in 1995 and more than 1,000 last year. Federal,
state and local agencies together raided more than 6,400 drug labs in 1999.
Seizures in Texas have increased from 33 in 1997 to 175 last year.

"It's spreading east like an out-of-control brush fire," said the DEA drug
expert.

Officials with Central Texas' Agriplex Drug Task Force said they have
busted almost one illegal meth lab a month in the past half-year. The most
recent seizure occurred Jan. 31 on some unincorporated property north of
Elm Mott. An arrest warrant has been issued for a 37-year-old man suspected
of running the lab where about 21 pounds of the speed was made, said
Agriplex agent Rodger Leach.

DEA officials said there is a good-news and bad-news scenario on the
methamphetamine front.

"The good news is it's one area of the drug war where we're winning some
battles," said the DEA drug expert who wished not to be identified.

Certain chemicals for making large amounts of speed by the Mexican cartels
have become better controlled and intercepted. The DEA official said 75
percent to 90 percent of meth is made from so-called "super labs" run by
Mexican drug organizations and a few biker gangs. But with chemicals more
difficult to obtain, the purity of the drug has decreased from 60.5 percent
six years ago to 27.2 percent in May 1999. Thus, the bad news.

The purity is down so you're seeing a lot of people buying from emerging
"mom and pop" labs, according to DEA officials.

Officials said the smaller labs, which produce as little as a half-ounce of
the drug, can make meth with few ingredients. It also can be produced just
about anywhere.

"They can do it on the side of the road or do it in apartments," said
Agriplex's Leach, adding that a form of meth called "bathtub speed" can be
made in motel rooms.

One meth manufacturing method is dubbed the "Nazi method." It is so called
because methamphetamine was made during World War II for German soldiers to
stay awake. The recipe uses over-the-counter drugs like pseudoephedrine —
found in cold remedies — ephedrine, lithium and anhydrous ammonia. The
latter ingredient has been stolen in recent times from Central Texas
farmers who use the ammonia for fertilizer.

Officials say methods for making meth are passed from inmate-to-inmate and
are even found on the Internet.

But the recipes can be flawed.

"A lot of people are putting recipes on the Internet, but getting the
ingredients wrong," Leach said. "They are leaving out one step. People are
also stealing this anhydrous ammonia and don't have a clue that it can kill
you."

Chemical interactions or a simple mistake can also cause a catastrophe.

"There are a myriad of threats," said the DEA expert. "You can light up a
cigarette, have an open can of ether and the whole place can blow up."

Woodway public safety officers faced such a threat last fall when they
discovered a meth lab in an apartment directly above another apartment that
was on fire. The meth-making equipment was found when an officer checked on
the upstairs apartment.

"It would have been extremely dangerous had the officer not responded as
quickly as he did and had not identified it as quickly," said Yost Zakhary,
director of the Woodway Public Safety Department.

Meth labs may also cause pollution.

"I've read a report that for every pound of meth produced there are 10
pounds of toxic waste," said the DEA official. "These people are not very
environmentally conscious."

Environmental cleanup of a speed lab, while dangerous to law enforcement
and others, is also costly — $5,000 to clean the smallest of them, Leach
said.

To enter a lab, Agriplex agents must use protective equipment, including
special suits that cost between $40 and $100 and that must be discarded
after use.

Methamphetamine sells for about $100 a gram in Central Texas, Agriplex
agents said. But users pay another price with the drug's abuse.

"There is psychological addiction as much as physical damage," said K. Paul
Holt, administrator of the Freeman Center, a drug treatment facility in
Waco. "When using stimulants, it robs your body of functional rest and
surroundings become muddled and surreal."

A week-long binge can lead to paranoia and violence.