REGION BRACES FOR METH LABS

Firefighters Learning About Chemical Hazard

It's not an epidemic yet. But it's here.

Methamphetamine - a highly addictive, teeth-rotting illegal drug worming
its way through the country like a cancer - has finally made it to the
Danbury area.

State police found a small meth lab in a shed behind a house in New
Fairfield in mid-June, said Sgt. John Mucherino, of the Statewide Narcotics
Task Force.

The lab apparently belonged to a 30-year-old man living with his father.
The father noticed a collection of strange chemicals and lab equipment in
the shed and called police.

When troopers arrived, the 30-year-old man was walking out of the shed. "He
told them, 'I'm making methamphetamine.' He didn't hide that fact,"
Mucherino said. The man was apparently making the drug for personal use,
police said.

The man has not been arrested yet; police seized the equipment and are
waiting for test results from a police laboratory When the results arrive,
police will apply for an arrest warrant, Mucherino said.

The New Fairfield shed is the third meth lab found this summer in the state
- - a significant number, considering just one lab was found in all of 2003.

Nationally, the drug - also known as crystal meth, speed, glass, ice, white
trash crack, trucker speed - is being abused in patterns that mirror the
crack cocaine epidemic of the early 1980s.

That's one reason the Danbury Fire Department has been teaching
firefighters about methamphetamine and how to respond when they enter a
house with a meth lab.

"My goal is to make sure my guys are safe," said Capt. Geoffrey Herald, who
led training sessions after he was trained at the U.S. Justice Department
and Department of Homeland Security.

There's nothing safe about making meth. It involves cooking volatile
chemicals and often results in explosions, fires and the release of toxic gas.

In other parts of the country, firefighters often stumble on meth labs.
Neighbors tend to call fire departments after noticing a strong chemical
odor coming from a house.

Arriving firefighters are in a dangerous spot because they are not
expecting to encounter volatile chemicals. "You are not expecting a hazmat
incident when you respond to a second-floor apartment. You just don't
expect that," Herald said.

In Danbury, firefighters are taught to treat the discovery of a meth lab
like a chemical spill. That means they might have to don protective suits
and respirators and use foam to fight a fire instead of water.

When the small meth lab was found in New Fairfield, Danbury firefighters
were put on call. However, since there was no fire, state police called in
a special response team from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency in Boston.

The DEA has a team of specially-trained chemists and agents who seized
evidence from the lab.

In other parts of the country, Herald said there also have been cases where
a car carrying meth chemicals in its trunk crashed. A white cloud appeared.
However, responding firefighters assumed it was from the car's air bag or
steam from a radiator.

"In that case, it was ammonia they had stolen to make methamphetamine. It
was in containers not meant to carry it. It spilled. So now, in the middle
of an intersection in a metropolitan area, you have a chemical cloud,"
Herald said. "You don't expect to find that in a motor vehicle accident
involving a sedan."

In 1999, an Oregon firefighter was burned by hydrochloric acid and
ephedrine - both used to make meth - after responding to a fire at a secret
lab. In Iowa that same year, three police officers had respiratory problems
after breathing anhydrous ammonia.

Fire and police departments across the country have developed protocols
when they discover meth labs - many even have specialized units to break
down the labs.

That hasn't happened in greater Danbury - but it's on the mind of local
fire departments.

Herald said the goal of his training classes was simple. "I wanted to get
the information to our guys before this comes to Danbury," he said. "I want
to at least make them aware."

Smoking or snorting meth gives users a quick, euphoric high and causes
health problems ranging from anorexia to respiratory problems.

Methamphetamine differs from other illegal drugs because it is relatively
cheap and easy to make. Users often make it themselves, using nothing more
than an oven flame and a collection of items and chemicals that can be
found at any store.

The chemicals involved in its production, such as acetone or anhydrous
ammonia, can kill a person who breathes it - or incinerate them if the lab
catches fire.

Abuse of the drug skyrocketed in the 1990s, according to the Office of
National Drug Control Policy. Nationally, about 14,500 people sought
treatment for meth addiction in 1992. By 1998, the number of people seeking
help rose to about 55,700.

Meanwhile, meth seizures by federal agents shot up 140 percent from 1992 to
2002.

Still, police said meth isn't tearing through Connecticut like it has in
other parts of the country.

"The East Coast has not had a lot of methamphetamine. We're sort of the
last bastion against it," said Capt. Thomas Snyder, commanding officer of
the Statewide Narcotics Task Force.

Snyder's outfit played a part in investigating the three meth labs, two of
which were in East Hampton, which is near the Connecticut River.

"Right now heroin and cocaine are very popular. The East Coast and the
Northeast specifically, it's heroin and cocaine. So whether people haven't
figured out (meth) is available or aren't interested, I don't know what to
tell you," Snyder said. "But I'm happy they're not, because it's a scourge.
That I can tell you."