POLICE BUST METH LAB

First it was the proliferation of indoor marijuana growing operations.

Now Delta police are contending with commercial-sized crystal
methamphetamine labs, places that produce a dangerous chemical cocktail
that can explode at any time.

Last Friday afternoon, a motorist driving on 104th Street in East Delta, in
the heart of the community's farmland, spotted a man who climbed out of a
roadside bush trying to attract the driver's attention.

"He stated to the motorist he had been held against his will and beaten,"
said Delta police media liaison officer Const. Sharlene Brooks. "He said
there were others in a barn-type building also being held."

But this was a bigger story than four men who had been forcibly confined
against their will.

Inside that barn-type structure was an active methamphetamine lab.

A few days into the investigation, detectives are still trying to determine
how long the lab had been operating.

While other smaller labs have been found in the municipality, this was by
far the largest discovered to date.

"Methamphetamine is the number one drug trend in Canada right now," said
Det. Scott Lebus. "It's been in Delta for a long time, it's just that now
it's become very public."

The Surrey fire department's hazardous materials team was called in to help
decontaminate the site and anyone who went inside it, including the four
men who were confined.

"We don't have a haz-mat team," said fire chief Gord Freeborn, who added
Delta will be billed by Surrey for its services. "We will try to get the
costs recovered through the property owner."

Delta police also had to call in the RCMP's clandestine lab team because
the department doesn't have one of its own.

The lab, at the corner of 104th Street and 59th Avenue, was operating in
what could have housed chickens at one time. There's a chain link gate at
the entrance to the property. Inside the gravel-paved compound,
semi-tractor trailer units and containers were parked on the property,
which had been rented from a farmer.

Crystal meth, a colourless, odourless chemical concoction, is a nasty drug
that's highly addictive. Once produced for the street, it resembles
fragments of glass or shiny white rocks of varying sizes. It can be smoked
or injected, with the high lasting more than 12 hours.

Listed as a "significant drug threat" in the United States-Canada Border
Drug Threat Assessment released in 2001, users experience rapid heart rate,
increased blood pressure and damage to the small blood vessels in the
brain, which can lead to stroke.

Ecstasy, a popular drug often found at Raves, is a derivative of crystal meth.

Delta police believe this operation was one perpetrated by organized crime,
but did not specify a particular criminal group. In the same drug threat
assessment, it states: "Outlaw motorcycle gangs are historically major
methamphetamine producers and distributors."

"We were warned about marijuana grow-ops by the U.S. (authorities) 10 years
ago and we're now being warned about meth labs," Lebus said. "We did little
to prepare for grow-ops and if we do nothing to prepare for meth labs, then
we could have a real problem."

A concern long held by Canadian police agencies is the lack of regulations
governing the sale of chemicals used to make crystal meth.

"In the United States, you cannot walk into a grocery store and buy more
than two or three packages of cold medicine. In Canada, there's no
regulation on that," Lebus explained.

The drug ephedrine contained in cold medicine is one of the chemicals used
to produce crystal meth.

"It's incumbent upon the police to try and get that message out there, that
if someone walks in and asks to buy a case of cold medicine we need to get
the message out that this is not normal. This is a suspicious transaction,"
Lebus said.

"The lack of regulations has created a situation where to make it becomes
very simple. All you need is the recipe and the will to do it," the
detective said.

There are other social costs, namely environmental.

"To produce one pound of methamphetamine, you're going to produce, by
volume, seven pounds of waste," Lebus explained.

Greg Kanya, one of two provincial toxic management and emergency response
officers in the Lower Mainland, was also called out to the 104th Street
site. He said the site is under investigation, and at this point, he has
not determined the extent of contamination.

"The local police advised there was evidence to suggest chemicals may have
been dumped into the floor drains of the subject structure," Kanya said.

In the end, it is predicted to cost thousands of dollars to clean up the
site, police said.

"It is very costly," Lebus said.