POLK CO. OFFICIALS - PUBLIC CAN HELP HALT METH

OSCEOLA - Propane. A bit of plastic hose. Cold pill wrappers.

On their own, they are simply byproducts of daily life. Found
together, chances are someone has recently been cooking
methamphetamine.

It doesn't take much of a trained eye to spot the signs. For the most
part, the components of a lab are pretty much the same - it's just
knowing what to look for.

U.S. Attorney Mike Heavican and several area sheriffs and police
chiefs gathered at the high school in Osceola on Tuesday night to
address a couple dozen residents of Polk County about the telltale
signs of meth use and manufacture.

According to Polk County Sheriff Jim Davis, one of the biggest
stumbling blocks to beating the meth problem is convincing residents
of smaller towns that the drug is in their midst.

"You can't stress enough that it's going on out there, in their back
yard," Davis said before the meeting.

State Patrol Investigator Don Pounds has seen the epidemic
unfold.

The number of labs in the state has risen from 230 in 2001 to 353 the
following year, Pounds said. Although the numbers for 2003 are not all
in, Pounds said the increase could be as high as 70 percent.

The ingredients that are used to make the drug, from the lithium in
batteries, to anhydrous ammonia, to muriatic acid, are highly
volatile. Explosions are a risk, and inhaling the fumes the chemicals
emit has proved deadly.

The meth that is cooked and distributed in the area is only a small
fraction of the drug that is here. The majority of it is imported from
the South and West, Pounds said.

While citizens can't point out a car on the interstate transporting
narcotics, they can aid police in identifying users, sellers and those
who are cooking meth, the panel agreed.

"If you see a cooler out in a ditch, leave it alone. Give us a call,"
Davis said.

Steel canisters in the woods are a pretty good sign, Pounds said.
Emptied fire extinguishers, steel barrels and propane tanks have all
been used to hold anhydrous ammonia for cookers in a pinch.

The ingredients needed to make one ounce of meth cost about $160, and
the amount of space needed to make it is minimal. It can be done in
the trunk of a car.

Pounds said the process takes about four hours to make one ounce. That
ounce sells for about $1,250, about three times the price of an ounce
of gold.

The quick process and the small space needed to make meth make time of
the essence in terms of law enforcement responding to a possible lab.

"These labs are so mobile. In four hours they can cook what they cook
and be gone," York Police Chief Dan Klug said.

Heavican said that is why community involvement is so
important.

"We find people out in the community know a lot more than they get to
law enforcement. They think law enforcement already knows," Heavican
said.

Above all, Pounds warned people to be careful.

Because the chemicals are dangerous to inhale, people should not open
strange containers lying by the road or on their property. Also,
because meth cookers are almost always users, and users can become
extremely paranoid as a result of the drug, a person should not try to
approach anyone who is in the process of manufacturing it.

"You don't know what the liquids are," Pounds said. "We have to treat
them as hazardous waste."

Davis said there have been about 16 labs found in Polk County, but the
public doesn't always hear about it.

"When we bust a lab we don't publicize it just due to the fact that
sometimes we can get more information from the people we're arresting
at the time," Davis said.

While it serves the department's efforts to combat the drug, it could
also perpetuate the myth that meth has not hit the county, or that
"we're not doing anything about it," Davis said.

He hoped those in attendance Tuesday night would leave with the
understanding that meth is becoming more prevalent in small-town
Nebraska, and it will take the efforts of entire communities to try to
contain it.