Part 1: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a01.html

Part 2: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a02.html

Part 3: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a03.html

Part 4: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n023.a01.html

Part 5: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a02.html

Part 6: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a01.html

Part 7: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a03.html

BLIZZARD OF METH WOES BLANKETS RURAL COUNTIES

After devoting a couple of dozen years to law enforcement in Pierce
County, Lt. Randy Sweem counts the days until he can retire from the
Sheriff's Department and move his children far away from the madness
of meth.

It's being made everywhere -- in trailers on choice waterfront
property on Spanaway Lake, in motel rooms on I-5, in the trunks of
stolen vehicles. It's affecting everybody, from 37-year-old
grandparents who pass the artform on to their grandkids, to meth-using
children of law enforcement officers.

With Pierce County the meth capital of Washington -- indeed, having
the third-highest number of labs on the West Coast -- Sweem has been
forced to narrow his attention the past 18 months to meth
manufacturing, though technically all narcotics come under his
purview. None matters like meth.

"If we don't do something, we'll be in a world of hurt in the next
four to five years," Sweem says.

Pierce County is in a world of hurt already.

Why? Perhaps it's because the county is still so rural, and isolated
areas are conducive to meth-making because it produces such rancid
odors. Perhaps it's because I-5 runs up the west side of the county,
and the Mexican organized crime families ship meth along with cocaine,
heroin and marijuana. Or perhaps it's because the county has one of
the lowest officer-to-citizen ratios in the state, making proactive
police work a luxury.

The other confounding mystery is why King County has escaped meth's
grip to the extent that it has.

While Pierce County is near the top of the meth wave, King County
doesn't even crack the top 20. Through the first 10 months of 1999,
King County asked the state Department of Ecology, which handles the
meth lab wastes for all counties, to deal with 78 labs. In Pierce
County, the number was 256.

Besides proximity the counties have much in common. King County is
partly rural, though less and less so; I-5 is just as dominant, and,
in the estimation of one narcotics detective, law enforcement in King
County is just as outmatched.

"It's frightening to me what the potential is for this (drug)," says
Detective Marlon Hoyle, who has worked meth labs in the King County
Sheriff's Department for 12 years.

Although King County statistics are nothing like its neighbor's, they
are worrisome because they are going only one way -- up. Makeshift
labs have been found in parked vehicles at grocery stores, at a Metro
park-and-ride in Bellevue and at a trailhead at Snoqualmie Pass on
I-90.

It is fortunate that operations in unincorporated King County have
been small, involving one or two people, creating no more than a pound
of meth at a time.

Sweem may live for the day he can pack his bags and leave infested
Pierce County. Trouble is, wherever he goes in this state or on the
West Coast, meth will be there.

Of the law enforcement officers who responded to a survey by the
Washington State Narcotics Investigators Association, 91 percent
reported increased use or availability of meth.

Spokane County: "Meth is easily the most common drug found by our officers
on traffic stops."

Lummi Law & Order: Crack is still the drug of choice on the reservation but
"meth is up and coming."

Ruston Police Department: In a town of 700, three labs have been found so
far in 1999.

Lower Yakima Valley Drug Task Force: Meth seizures have increased about 50
percent over two years.

Clark-Skamania counties: "We are constantly seizing ounces and pounds
of meth versus grams and ounces a few years ago."

The survey also graphically demonstrates that making meth is the
antithesis of a victimless crime. When police stumble across meth,
they also encounter:

Fires or explosions because the myriad chemicals are so volatile and
the cooks are so careless.

All kinds of weapons and booby traps because the cooks are literally
paranoid about being detected.

Evidence of other crimes perpetrated to pay for the manufacturing. The
crimes seen most often are burglary, auto and mail theft, assault,
check kiting and credit card fraud.

In a more reprehensible category are the crimes of violence associated
with meth use, like child abuse and domestic violence.

At the Eastside Narcotics Task Force, which covers Redmond, Kirkland,
Bellevue and other cities east of Lake Washington, Lt. Jim Kowalczyk
isn't as concerned about the doubling in meth labs from 1998 to 1999,
as he is about the bigger quantities of product found within the cities.

Across the mountains, in the state's second largest metropolitan area,
no meth lab has been as much a concern as the first, busted in late
1995 at a day care center. Still, the numbers are rising steadily.
"Our stats aren't as bad as the west side of the state," says Spokane
County Lt. Chan Bailey. "We're just starting to see what they've seen
in the past few years."

Over "about as far west as you can go and not get wet," Grays Harbor
County Undersheriff Rick Scott ranks meth as the drug of choice: "Our
prosecutor would tell you that of the hundreds of possession cases
filed every year, 90 percent are meth.

"Right now it's just so commonplace and prevalent, and every time you
turn around there's a new recipe," Scott adds. Larger amounts are
traced to Mexican sources but small-volume cooks are attracted to the
county's remoteness. They move from motel to motel, campsite to
campsite, cooking up small batches and leaving the toxic waste behind.
An inmate work crew found two labs while cleaning ditches.

Because Grays Harbor has no specially trained lab team, it has to rely
on the Washington State Patrol team -- as does every county but King
and Pierce. "It's not uncommon for us to call and get put on the
waiting list, depending on the size of the lab," Scott says. " . . .
you just have to wait your turn."

One of Scott's officers has to guard the lab, often on overtime, to
ensure that "some citizen doesn't innocently wander into it."

Across the state is Tekoa, between Pullman and Spokane. Its only
police officer, Ronald G. Anderson, anticipates the havoc that will
result when he finds the first meth lab in the town of 900, which so
far has only users.

"If we found a lab? It would kill us, especially since we're losing
$66,000 under Initiative 695," Anderson says.

Anderson would be particularly hard-pressed to infiltrate a group of
users in Tekoa -- they all know him.

In the survey by the narcotic officers association, Anderson wrote
plaintively, "I will do anything, go anywhere to stop crank (meth) in
this area."

Elaborating on that thought in an interview, he cautioned: "If anyone
tells you they don't have a problem, they're lying to you or they have
their head in a bucket. If somebody finds the solution, will they call
me?"

[sidebar]

THIEVES AFTER ANHYDROUS AMMONIA TARGETING FARMS AND FEED STORES

If what they were up to wasn't so dangerous, as well as illegal, the
antics of the miscreants skulking around farms and agricultural supply
stores in search of anhydrous ammonia would be comical.

Witness the pair of goons captured on a surveillance camera as they
went round and round in circles -- probably because they were high as
a kite on drugs -- trying to figure out the easiest way to siphon
ammonia from a 1,000-gallon tank. These characters made Laurel and
Hardy look sophisticated.

But this is no laughing matter in agricultural circles. Chemical
companies, feed stores and farmers are desperate to safeguard their
supplies of anhydrous ammonia, a staple in the latest, simplest way to
make meth.

This waterless version of ammonia is 82 percent nitrogen. At $1.15 a
gallon, that makes it a highly desirable fertilizer. By day farmers
shank it into the soil where wheat and potatoes grow.

By night the ammonia tanks, way out in the fields or nearby in storage
sheds, are vulnerable to the thieving ways of meth manufacturers. If
they don't want to pay the going rate of $100 a gallon on the black
market, they steal it. The return will be high: A gallon can be used
to make meth valued at $3,000 to $5,000.

"The problem is not how much they're taking but the fact they're
messing around the tanks," says John Massey, operating manager of
environment, health and safety for Western Farm Services in Spokane.
Recently, thieves simply poured the ammonia from a large tank to their
chosen receptacle, a 5-gallon propane tank, Massey said. "They either
have good lungs, or they don't have any lungs left."

What's most worrisome is the potential liabilty. That may sound
far-fetched, considering that the ammonia is being taken illegally.
Not so, according to a Portland attorney who addressed a meth
awareness seminar in Moses Lake.

"It's hard to believe, but if a thief gets hurt while stealing from
you, you could get sued," Jesse Lyon said. "Unless, of course, you can
show the court that you took reasonable precautions. But retailers can
be held responsible if the products they sell to the drug dealers are
used to make drugs."

Legislatures in several Midwestern states have passed laws upgrading
the theft of anhydrous ammonia to a felony. A similar bill has been
drafted for the Washington Senate's Agriculture and Rural Economic
Development Committee. The legislation would make it a Class C felony
to possess anhydrous ammonia with the intent to make meth or possess
it in a container it's not designed for.

More important, it would shift the liability for any harm done to the
thief.

Other options for those who trade in anhydrous ammonia include steps
as simple as blocking driveways to tank access and as expensive as
fencing, lighting and surveillance cameras.

Calling the cops isn't a realistic option, as Massey notes. "This is
no knock on the police -- they're just out of dough. If you don't have
a loss of more than $500, they're not coming out."

[sidebar]

'NAZI' LABS MIX COMMON INGREDIENTS INTO DEADLY DRUG RECIPE

It's going to take a village -- from John Knox, paint store owner in
Tumwater, to Costco, discount house to the world -- to defeat the
meth-making machine that is fueling ever-higher rates of addiction in
Washington state. If indeed it can be done.

In Knox's neighborhood -- south of Olympia, hard against I-5 -- meth
is death.

Knox was southbound on I-5 near Fort Lewis when a rolling meth lab
headed the other direction exploded and burned to the pavement. He's
been at the cash register of his store when pistol-packing people
stopped in to ask for toluene, a solvent that is one ingredient in the
newest recipe for meth.

To avoid enabling more dangerous manufacturing, the P-I is not
identifying all of meth's many ingredients in this series.

"I've sold it to folks that don't look like they belong on this
planet," Knox says, describing people "about three feet over the floor
from the jitters they've got."

What alarms Knox is the amount of toluene, which he likens to "canned
dynamite" because of its flash point, that has left his store,
lawfully or unlawfully. "It went critical mass five years ago when I
started selling 500 or 600 gallons of toluene a year," he said.

He began talking about regulations to any elected official who would
listen, "explaining that in our little corner of the world, meth has
become, what would you call it: A cotton-pickin' plague."

Because toluene is as legal to sell as a can of paint, Knox is
helpless -- to a point. He's pulled it off the front shelves. He gets
a certain amount of satisfaction when sky-high addicts frantically
search the store for it; to him, "they look like a dog on a hot trail
of a rabbit."

He's gone farther. He won't sell toluene to anyone without a business
license. Knox has a warning for any suspicious buyers: "On the way
out, I'll be sure to get your license plate and give it to the local
narc."

His resourcefulness appeals to police officers and prosecutors who've
already figured out that they "can't arrest our way out of this
epidemic," in the words of Roger Lake, president of the Washington
State Narcotics Investigators Association.

In 1993 the investigators association began alerting law enforcement
agencies around the state to the presence of "Nazi" labs, which are
more worrisome than the previous methods of making meth because they
employ readily available chemicals and equipment that can be found in
kitchen cupboards.

One ingredient is psuedoephedrine, the mainstay of popular cold
remedies. Another is lithium metal, which is commercially available in
lithium batteries.

After the Nazi recipes began circulating on the Internet, the
narcotics officers' group expanded its poster campaign to retail
stores in hopes their clerks would keep an eye out for customers
purchasing any meth-related product in unusual quantitites. Some
retailers have cooperated, by calling narcotics officers when
suspicious amounts are purchased. Others haven't, preferring the income.

Last year 7-Eleven, along with Walmart, agreed to pitch in. "Our
stores are instructed to turn down the sales of things (with
psuedoephedrine) that aren't going to be used for personal medical
use," said Ron Conlin, regional loss prevention manager. In addition,
police officers will be allowed to review surveillance tapes of
questionable purchases.

"Our first responsibilty to the public is to provide them with a
product that they require," Conlin said. But "all you had to do is
read the paper every other day (in Pierce County) to see that meth was
a problem."

Managers at Costco, which monitors 300 stores from headquarters in
Issaquah, felt similarly. "We have a particular problem in that Costco
carries large quantities of almost everything so we became a target of
meth labs," said Charles Burnett, senior vice president of pharmacy
operations. "The last thing we wanted to do was become a supplier of
illegal uses of a product."

Last year, Laura Birkmeyer, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego,
where meth took root several decades ago, flew to Seattle to talk to a
national meeting of Costco managers about restricting sale of products
containing psuedoephedrine. Costco is key because of the volume of
business it does, in the United States, in Mexico and other countries,
he said.

Sales of products with psuedoephedrine are limited at Costco to no
more than two grams, Burnett said. "Once in a while, we find people
who have gone from one warehouse to another. Once we track that by
membership number, we stop it -- we can tell who bought what and where
and how much."