COUNTY TO CREATE ANTI-METH INTERDICTION TEAM

RUTHERFORDTON -- The Rutherford County Sheriff's Department plans to
launch a highway interdiction team to snatch meth traffickers before
the drug reaches the mountains.

A $250,000 federal grant would cover the tab for four new deputies,
four new cruisers and two drug dogs to patrol the roads that connect
the major highways and interstates used as trafficking routes for the
highly addictive man-made narcotic.

Sheriff C. Philip Byers hopes the team could launch by June, helping
curb trafficking of a form of meth called Mexican ice from major
cities such as Atlanta.

Rutherford County adjoins Henderson and Polk, two other counties hit
hard by meth trafficking.

"It's going to help all of Western Carolina," Byers said. "It will be
a deterrent for the entire (region), and we want to be able to stop
meth before it arrives to its destination."

Meth struck the mountains with force in the late 1990s. It has since
become the top drug problem facing law enforcement. In recent years,
rural Rutherford County became a hot spot for homemade meth labs --
deputies seized 34 in 2003, 43 in 2004 and 35 in 2005.

The number of meth labs busted by police is dropping in the mountains
and across the state. Rutherford County deputies seized four meth
labs so far this year, plus 10 dump sites for the toxic chemicals
used to make the drug.

Some authorities credit a law launched three months ago that
restricts the purchase of cold medicines used to make meth.

But local law enforcement agents, including Byers, say the labs are
fading as trafficking increases and more addicts are buying Mexican
ice. Despite fewer meth labs, Rutherford County is seeing more meth
addicts and problems than last year because of trafficking, Byers said.

So mountain law enforcement agencies are focusing their energy toward
tackling the trafficking through tactics such as highway interdiction teams.

The Rutherford County team would focus on U.S. Highways 64, 74 and
221, connector routes between big cities and interstates.

"We had discovered a lot of the drugs coming into and through
Rutherford County were as a result of drug traffickers not wanting to
be on the main roads," Byers said.

Traffickers avoid the major roadways because larger law enforcement
agencies, such as the N.C. Highway Patrol, launched interdiction
teams on the interstate. Traffickers started taking secondary routes,
including roads through Rutherford County. Byers hopes the
interdiction team will tighten the noose.

The sheriff plans to testify before a Congressional subcommittee
Tuesday in Caldwell County during a hearing called "Appalachian Ice:
The Methamphetamine Epidemic in Western North Carolina."

U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-Gastonia, will be among the elected
leaders present. McHenry and U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor, R-Brevard,
helped Byers secure the money for the highway interdiction team.