MORE METH COOKS MAKING OWN AMMONIA

The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS -- Authorities once bent on curbing thefts of anhydrous ammonia
often required for methamphetamine have a new dilemma: Savvy makers of the
drug apparently are crafting the ammonia on their own.

Authorities this year raided a lab making anhydrous ammonia in Lemay, a St.
Louis suburb. Two recent raids of meth labs in St. Francois County
reportedly found cooks doing the same, Capt. Scott Reed, a Missouri State
Highway Patrol drug investigator, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a
story Saturday.

And in Overland, another St. Louis suburb, authorities believe a home
caught fire this year after the recipe for anhydrous ammonia went awry in
the making of meth.

To Reed, creating homemade anhydrous ammonia is "the next big thing in
Missouri meth."

The highway patrol estimates there is a theft of anhydrous ammonia at least
nightly somewhere in Missouri, a state where the fertilizer is legally used
for crops and illegally converted to a meth ingredient.

Last year, more than one of every six meth labs in the country were found
in Missouri, where police recorded a nation-leading 2,725 raids and
seizures, according to federal and state figures released in March. That
marked a 28 percent increase over 2001.

The drug is made in makeshift labs using pseudoephedrine, which the active
ingredient in most cold pills, and other ingredients such as anhydrous
ammonia or red phosphorous, found in flares and matches.

Anhydrous ammonia is the only ingredient that can't be bought legally for
recipes that make meth.

Attempts to make anhydrous ammonia often fail, but Detective Jason Grellner
of the Franklin County Sheriff's Department narcotics unit said rewards,
such as potential cost savings and lower likelihood of being caught,
outweigh the risks for most cooks.

Higher awareness of meth and its ingredients makes it harder to steal
anhydrous ammonia, meaning the chemical's black-market price can top $100 a
gallon, a huge markup. Also each year, police catch hundreds of suspected
meth cooks transporting stolen anhydrous ammonia or storing it in unlawful
containers.

A popular recipe for the fertilizer calls for ammonia salt found in garden
fertilizers, drain opener and water. Detailed recipes can be found online.

"If someone shows you how to do it, you can do it," said Christopher Boldt,
a Missouri Department of Natural Resources chemist.

Among the potential perils: Anhydrous ammonia generators -- devices that
cooks craft from bottles, buckets and tubes to make the chemical -- can
explode. If enough gas escapes from the generator, it can burn,
incapacitate or kill those nearby.

The process used by meth cooks to make anhydrous ammonia also leaves behind
a corrosive byproduct that could injure people exposed to it and hurt the
environment, Boldt said.

And police say homemade fertilizer could lead to bigger drug labs producing
pounds, not just ounces, of methamphetamine.

"What we're trying to do now is stay ahead of the curve," Grellner said.