STATE GETS GRANT TO BATTLE METH INVASION

$1 Million Will Be Used To Hire More Drug Agents

Overwhelmed by the rapid growth of methamphetamine labs in western and
northwestern Wisconsin, law enforcement officials got some good news
Monday - a $1 million federal grant will be used to hire more agents
to fight the problem.

Calling methamphetamine a scourge on rural Wisconsin, Sen. Herb Kohl
(D-Wis.) visited Platteville on Monday to announce the funding.

"We are fortunate in Wisconsin to have very good local and state law
enforcement officials. It's the job of the federal government to
provide the money," Kohl said.

Wisconsin Attorney General James Doyle said more drug agents will be
assigned to the western and northwestern areas of the state because
the easily manufactured drug has been moving in from Iowa and Minnesota.

"It will help several local law enforcement drug task forces, and it
will go into helping the crime laboratory meet some of the increased
needs," Doyle said.

The money will also be spent on community education and outreach
programs to let people know the danger of the drug, also called
"crank," which causes anger, panic, paranoia and hallucinations.

It's a highly addictive, mind-altering stimulant that can be easily
made from chemicals that can be purchased at a grocery store.

Recipes are available on the Internet.

Hazel Green Police Chief Michael Gorham has seen the problem up
close.

Officers in the small Grant County community have discovered trash
labs - the remnants of meth labs left in rural ditches - and have
arrested people for manufacturing methamphetamine this year.

A man arrested in June confessed to making 32 batches of meth in a
six-month period.

"I'm hoping that by being proactive that Milwaukee never sees the
problem that Iowa has," Gorham said in a phone interview Monday. "The
reality is that this is the tip of the iceberg, and we need to shut it
down and stop it in its tracks."

Platteville Police Chief Earl Hernandez said there were 22
methamphetamine-related investigations in southwestern Wisconsin last
year.

Comparing it to a plague of locusts, Gorham said methamphetamine has
been working its way east from California for years and has now
invaded Iowa and Minnesota.

Drug agents seized more than 300 clandestine meth labs in Iowa last
year, Grant County Sheriff Keith Govier said.

Rural areas are getting hit because meth is a lot easier to obtain
than other illegal narcotics such as cocaine.

Because meth labs give off a strong smell from the ammonia, ether, lye
and lithium battery strips, most operations are in sparsely populated
areas where there are fewer police and fewer neighbors to complain
about the odor, Gorham said.

"In a rural area where there's less resources like police, it makes it
more attractive for the bad guys," said Gorham, who has been police
chief in Hazel Green for 21/2 years.

In July the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on the
methamphetamine problem. Aside from the $1 million grant to Wisconsin,
Kohl, who is a member of the committee, is also co-sponsor of a bill
to provide $50 million to rural communities battling the drug.

Journal Sentinel correspondent Nick Lagosi in Platteville contributed
to this report.