COMMUNITY WORKERS GET METH EDUCATION

An educational session on methamphetamine was held for community-based
workers July 29 at the Omniplex.

Cpl. Harold Trupish from "K" division RCMP was on hand to give
community-based workers an up close and personal look at meth, or speed,
and how it is produced.

The workshop was held so that people who work within the community and have
access to normally restricted areas could gain knowledge about meth and its
production. Meter readers, social workers, motel cleaning staff and others
are routinely granted access to places where they could come into contact
with chemicals or meth labs. The idea behind the workshop is to make sure
workers are safe when doing day to day routines. By knowing what the
chemicals look like and what the labs may look like, workers would be able
to protect themselves from harm and also help officials catch drug producers.

Trupish gave workers a rundown of clandestine labs.

"The labs are where producers take things legally obtained and make
something illegal," he said. "It's very fast (to produce). The time it
takes to make a pot of coffee I could make a batch of meth."

Workers were shown various methods of meth production and how production
evolved. The first method produced a weak form of the drug because it was
not absorbable by the brain and so never got into the mainstream, he said.
"It was only about 40 per cent pure and was mainly used by biker gangs to
prove a point."

"In '93 someone discovered you could make it in under four hours" using
what 's called the red phosphorous method. "This really revolutionized meth
use. All of a sudden someone without a background in chemistry could make
the stuff in less than four hours."

The speed this method produces is very effective.

"It hits your brain like a Mac truck," said Trupish.

Next came the "Nazi" method. A person can make a batch of meth in 35
minutes using anhydrous ammonia. This method isn't as popular among big
producers because it yields only small amounts of the drug, said Trupish.

Because the body expels about 30 per cent of meth through urination, some
addicts may obtain the drug in urine labs, said Trupish. "They will collect
the urine and then evaporate it to get more of the drug. There was a case
in Los Angeles where someone had 85 gallons of urine stockpiled."

There was also a case in Drayton Valley where someone took large quantities
of Vicks inhalers and extracted the small amount of ephedrine (another
precursor), said Trupish. The method is very weak and diluted and can't be
absorbed by the brain.

Drugstore workers were also warned of people coming into the store and
buying large amounts of cold medicine so they could extract the ephedrine
from the tablets.

"If all else fails people go to the drugstores. One box of cold medicine
can produce five grams of meth in a relatively simple process."

The workshop comes after police have been noticing a rise in the production
of meth. Alberta came second in all of Canada, after B.C., in the number of
meth lab busts. The problem has spread across two-thirds of the province,
said Trupish.

"It's something that seems to be growing and it's not going away."