METH LABS BLAZING TOXIC TRAIL ACROSS U.S.

Tenn. Leads U.S. In Costs For Toxic Cleanup

CHATTANOOGA - After years of tracking meth ampheta mine from California to
the Midwest and the backwoods of Tennessee, drug agents see no end to the
addictive stimulant's eastward migration.

The state of North Carolina has had to clean up 146 meth labs this year, up
from 62 a year ago.

Virginia has had 33, up from 14 a year ago.

New York is up to 32 from 10.

"It certainly is getting here," Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman Will
Glaspy said in a telephone interview from Washington.

For taxpayers, the migration means paying for cleanups of the homemade labs
where hazardous chemicals are mixed and heated.

The DEA spent $22 million last year cleaning up clandestine labs in the
United States. Records released this month show the total this year is
almost $15 million.

By far, Tennessee is No. 1 among the states in clandestine lab cleanup
cost, with 804 labs costing $3.1 million in 2002, and 1,083 labs costing
$1.9 million so far this year.

Congress last year gave the DEA $20 million to clean up meth-contaminated
property, including houses, businesses, apartments and motel rooms, so
people coming along later are not exposed to residues or harmful vapors.

Most meth is manufactured in rural areas because it creates a pungent
chemical odor that is easy to detect.

But Glaspy said meth labs have now been found in urban areas such as
Philadelphia, where a DEA agent was recently shot in a case involving 10
pounds of meth.

Meth users can go without sleep for weeks, but it can make them dangerous,
aggressive and paranoid.

At first, the drug boosts energy and the sex drive for up to 12 hours, but
continued use is physically destructive and addictive.

Making the drug - an explosive mix of heated toxic chemicals - is hazardous
to anyone who is exposed.

That often includes children.

Exposure to the vapors causes respiratory problems, headaches, nausea,
rashes and sores.

It can cause loss of consciousness and even death.

The homemade labs sometimes explode and burn.

Tennessee's first conference for government professionals who work with
meth cases is set for Dec. 1-3 in Nashville. Those attending will include
child protective services workers who respond, often during the night, when
agents discover meth labs in home kitchens and closets.

A year-old Tennessee law is making it easier for the state to take children
from parents who expose them to the production of meth.

Since the start of 2002, more than 600 children have been taken from the
custody of parents charged in meth cases.

In a case last month, a 12-year-old Bradley County girl's burned toes
prompted her school to call investigators. They arrested her parents and
said she was injured by chemicals used to make meth.

Federal agent Dave Shelton said the meth recipe is easy to learn, with
ingredients such as ephedrine from cold tablets, ether from engine starter,
iodine and sulfuric acid from drain cleaner.

"It's just like watching grandma make that cornbread," he said.

Shelton said meth became popular with bikers and truck ers in the late
1980s, and people making it moved from California, Oklahoma and Missouri
into southeastern Tennessee.

Most homemade methamphetamine is used by white people, said Asst. U.S.
Atty. Paul Laymon, but Mexican and Cuban drug gangs are importing large
quantities to northwest Georgia.