MAKESHIFT METHAMPHETAMINE LABS SPREADING IN N. TEXAS

Quicker than you can cook and cool a pecan pie, drug-makers can whip up a
batch of methamphetamine using a method once employed by Adolf Hitler's
Nazis.

They concoct the drug - the same one used to keep German troops alert during
World War II - from raw materials available at most any large discount
store.

And they complicate capture by doing it in two hours or less in a moving car
or boat, a hotel room or a campsite in the woods.

Lately, authorities say, these illicit operations - some call them Beavis
and Butthead labs - are popping up with more frequency in North Texas,
particularly Denton and Wise counties.

But so far neither Dallas police nor Collin County authorities have reported
finding any of the makeshift labs.

"We're crossing our fingers," said Chief Deputy Rick Allen of the Collin
County Sheriff's Department. "We don't think we are bulletproof, and we are
keeping an eye on it."

Denton County Sheriff's Lt. Richard Mankoff, who heads the North Central
Texas Narcotics Task Force, said the first documented Nazi-type operation
appeared in California about a decade ago.

The nomadic manufacturers started showing up not long ago in southern
Missouri and have spread to Arkansas, Oklahoma and North and East Texas,
said Special Agent Paul Villaescusa with the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Lt. Mankoff said the problem mushroomed locally in the last year after a man
taught the method to others for $5,000 per lesson.

"They are also finding the recipe on the Internet," he said.

Mr. Villaescusa and other police officials said one key to busting the
drug-makers is cooperation from retailers.

Typically, those making the drug known as crystal, crank or meth will buy
large quantities of cold remedies containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine,
automobile starter fluid, drain cleaner, denatured alcohol and other
over-the-counter products.

Lt. Mankoff said most retailers don't realize that buyers of large
quantities of seemingly innocent materials could be using them to make
illegal drugs.

The Wal-Mart chain has bent over backward to help, he said. Wal-Mart stores
videotape certain areas of the store for authorities, he said, and have
limited the quantities of ephedrine-bearing medicines they will sell.

One case of the cold medication can be turned into a pound of drug that will
fetch about $15,000 on Dallas streets, police said. Larger-volume
operations, mostly in California and Mexico, take days to manufacture a
batch of the highly addictive substances.

Lewisville Investigator Dan Coltrain, who works with the North Central Texas
Narcotics Task Force, said users have told him that the drug from the Nazi
recipe takes effect sooner and gives more of a rush.

It's also highly addictive.

"Once it's got you, it's got you," he said. "I've never worked with anyone
who's gotten off. They always go back to it."

Checked-by: Don Beck