NOSINESS PAYS IN WAR ON DRUGS

CHICAGO -- America's heartland may still be brimming with the bucolic
simplicity of endless corn rows and towering silos. But it's also become
home to one of the biggest scourges of modern society - drug use.

For several years the Midwest has been an emerging market in the nation's
drug trade, with everyone from Mexican drug kingpins to backyard
methamphetamine makers pushing their wares.

Yet the trend has also spawned a uniquely Midwestern response - one that
draws on traditions of small-town, chat-over-the-fence closeness and a
steely sense of personal responsibility honed by generations of
early-rising farmers.

In the past three weeks, for instance, residents of Des Moines, Iowa, have
twice sniffed suspicious odors coming from nearby houses and alerted police
to clandestine methamphetamine labs in their neighbors' basements or
backyards.

This region, long buffered from the latest national trends by geography,
has in a sense become a trend-setter itself - in drug use and in antidrug
efforts.

``Drugs used to pass through on their way to Chicago or wherever,'' says
Dale Woolery, head of Iowa's antidrug program. ``But dealers have a new
market in rural America, so now some loads are stopping here. But we have a
lot of good communities, and they've got their eye on the ball.''

Residents have good reason to pay attention. Last year Iowa had 63 busts of
methamphetamine, or ``meth,'' labs. This year the state may hit 200.

In Missouri, often considered the nation's meth capital, there were 455 lab
seizures last year, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA). This year is on pace to hit 630.

Meth - or ``crank,'' as it's known on the street - is highly addictive and
can be concocted with household ingredients such as cough medicine,
ammonia, and lithium from watch batteries. Because it can be made virtually
anywhere, it doesn't depend on a centralized - and expensive - distribution
system. Thus, it's easy to find and is relatively cheap. Users like it for
its long-lasting high, which can run for several days.

It's typically consumed by white men, who feel a sexual prowess when using
it. But recently it has made inroads with women, who use it for quick
weight loss.

Meth's rise in rural America has been well publicized, but other drugs are
also gaining a foothold. Thirty-two percent of Midwest treatment providers
reported a rise in marijuana use last year, according to the White House's
drug-policy office. And while cocaine use has leveled off in most major
cities, there are hints of growing use in the Midwest. So far this year,
for instance, DEA agents in Chicago have seized three times as much cocaine
as they did in all of last year.

The growing number of busts in Chicago points up an important element of
the Midwest's drug trade - Mexican cartels. These aggressive groups began
wresting control of the drug trade away from Colombian cartels in the late
1980s, experts say. Now they dominate the business.

In the US they are known to set up shop among Mexican migrant workers, such
as those who've flocked to Chicago or small Midwestern towns with
meat-packing plants. Then they carve out a business niche. Missouri, for
instance, has seen a rise in the amount of heroin use, especially among teens.

The attraction stems from ``heroin chic'' ads, such as those by Calvin
Klein, says DEA spokeswoman Shirley Armstead in St. Louis. ``Then some kids
try it thinking if they can smoke it - and not use needles - they won't get
hooked. That's just not true, she says, and may point to a naivete among
such teens.

In the effort to combat the drug scourge, Midwesterners have followed their
own traditions. One consistent trend is neighborly alertness. Small-town
residents have always kept an eye on others out of a sense of
neighborliness (or for a little gossip). Now they're putting their noses to
work to cut crime.

PUBLICITY about meth labs - and how they can cause house-leveling
explosions - has educated residents about alcohol or ether smells that
emanate from in-home factories. ``A lot of our lab busts are made by
citizens calling in,'' says Mike Green of the Springfield, Mo., police
department. ``It's actually pretty easy'' to sniff out a lab, he says.
``There's a big difference between the smell of ether and a neighbor's
barbecue.''

Midwesterners are also getting help from that new icon of small-town
America - Wal-Mart. Anyone trying to buy big quantities of meth-making,
over-the-counter drugs is rebuffed by a cash-register-imposed maximum. DEA
agents say the program has slowed production.

Finally, new laws intended to hold drug dealers more accountable are
gaining ground in the Midwest. They enable users to sue dealers on
product-liability grounds.

In the first suit of this kind, two Detroit drug dealers were ordered in
1995 to pay $1 million to the estate of a baby killed by her drug-addicted
mother. Five of the 10 states that have passed the law are in the Midwest.

Last month, Rep. Tom Latham (R) of Iowa introduced a similar bill in
Congress. In the Midwestern spirit of taking responsibility for one's
actions, the bill would ``shift the cost of the damage caused by the ...
illegal drug market ... to those who illegally profit from that market,''
he recently explained.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan