ILLEGAL METH LABS SPREAD IN N.C.

Attorney General Marshals Forces For Major Crackdown

RALEIGH - Methamphetamine abuse is quickly sweeping North Carolina, and the
state needs money and cooperation of law enforcement agencies,
social-service groups and the public to fight the problem, Attorney General
Roy Cooper said Tuesday.

Cooper wants tougher penalties for manufacturing and selling meth, which
can be made from easily bought drugs and chemicals such as cold medicine
and lye.

The attorney general also said he wants to improve education to help the
public spot suspicious activity. For example, he said, hotel maids and
garbage collectors should call police when they see scores of empty blister
packs for over-the-counter drugs in the trash, Cooper said at a news
conference.

"They need to know a person who comes in and buys 10 boxes of Sudafed is
not a big family with a bad cold," he said.

Meth labs sprouted up along the West Coast more than 20 years ago, and now
are spreading east. In North Carolina, the first meth lab was reported in
1999, and the State Bureau of Investigation found a total of nine labs that
year. In 2003, that number grew to 177 labs found in about half of N.C.
counties, mostly in the western half of the state. The SBI expects it to
nearly double this year.

Other counties haven't had as many busts, in part because the state hasn't
had the resources to aggressively investigate meth labs, said SBI Director
Robin Pendergraft. In many areas, law-enforcement officials are not trained
to recognize signs of meth lab activity.

Cooper has stressed the need to educate law-enforcement and social-service
officials about how to identify and respond to meth labs as the problem
spreads to new counties.

Cooper and law-enforcement agencies haven't put a price tag on the problem,
but said they need the stricter sentencing guidelines used in other states
to prevent the rapid spread of meth labs. He began meeting with
law-enforcement and social-services officials last fall to study the
problem and find solutions.

Law-enforcement agents are describing it as worse than the crack cocaine
epidemic, both in the potency of addiction and in the dangers it poses.

Meth labs can explode because of the volatile chemicals used in the
manufacturing process, and their toxicity can turn a neighborhood into a
hazardous-waste area. Children can easily succumb to fumes from some of the
chemicals and suffer lasting respiratory problems.

Children were found in one-fourth of the homes, apartments and cars where
meth labs were discovered last year, Pendergraft said.

SBI agents say the hazardous mixtures created in making the drug have
seeped through cracks in their chemical-protection suits and burned their
necks. A meth lab explosion in Watauga County in 2003 seared the lungs of a
volunteer firefighter and cost him 85 percent of his lung capacity. Watauga
had 34 meth lab busts last year, the most of any N.C. county.

"You can't just go in and do a raid and confiscate it like marijuana; this
stuff is dangerous," said Litchard Hurley, Randolph County sheriff and
former president of the N.C. Sheriff's Association.

Rowan County Sheriff George Wilhelm said many meth manufacturers use motel
rooms or rented houses and mobile homes, contaminating them for the next
resident.

"These things eat your lungs up and eat your skin up."

On Saturday, in Rutherford County, a real estate agent discovered a meth
lab while showing a client a property that was supposed to be vacant, said
Van Shaw Jr., an SBI agent who handles lab busts. That county, in Western
North Carolina, had 14 meth busts in 2003.

Anna Mills Wagoner, U.S. attorney for North Carolina's Middle District, is
planning a seminar in February to educate retailers in Rowan County and
Statesville about drugs that are often stolen or purchased to make meth.
Some major retailers such as Wal-Mart already limit the number of those
items a customer may purchase.

Cooper's statements Tuesday were designed to draw feedback from
law-enforcement agencies statewide and to build support for tougher
sentencing legislation and for additional funds. Lawmakers return to
Raleigh to conduct normal business in May, although Gov. Mike Easley can
bring them back early by calling a special session.

A prison population explosion also could hurt Cooper's proposals. The
legislature is already considering changes in sentencing that would relieve
prison crowding. Cooper said he's been working with the N.C. Sentencing
Commission to mitigate the problem.