METH USERS ARE PRONE TO VIOLENT ACTIONS

HILLSBORO P Lt. Chuck Middleton, of the Highland County Sheriff's Office
has probably seen more illegal methamphetamine production than anyone else
in the county.

"I've seen a lot of drugs come and a lot of drugs go, but this is the one
that I wish I had never seen and had never been invented. It scares me that
much," said Middleton.

So far, the Highland County Sheriff's Office has investigated 36 labs since
the first lab was discovered in October 2000.

"It seems to be getting more and more dangerous," Middleton said. "When
this started, it was pretty mild; but now it seems like every time we are
dealing with someone involved with meth, we are dealing with someone who
has weapons. It's getting more and more violent when combined with the
mental and physical deterioration of these people.

"They are paranoid to the point where they think everyone is watching them.
I've never seen anything like it. I've dealt with people who are on meth
and are coming off of meth and you can't believe it. I've seen a girl pull
on her tongue until she made it bleed and blood was running down her chin;
and she didn't even realize it. When I mentioned it to her, she stopped and
started pulling on her ears. I've seen users pick at their skin until it is
just a bloody sore, I don't understand it. Their nerves are just on end."

Though Middleton, Detective Danny Croy and Detective Steve Alexander have
more specialized training in busting meth labs, much of the credit is also
deserved by the road patrol officers.

"The detectives and I get a lot of the credit; when really a lot of it is
really the road deputies," said Middleton. "We have a great road patrol and
there are a few of them out there who are extremely aggressive when it
comes to meth. They get the ball rolling. Most of them begin with a traffic
stop and report it. Then we take the ball and we run with it. Lots of these
road guys have gotten us to where we are now.

"I truly don't believe that we have more methamphetamine than these other
counties P we do have our share, but in my opinion we are just more
aggressive than a lot of these other counties. I've heard people from other
counties say that ‘they don't have a methamphetamine problem.' I tell
them that they just haven't found it yet. We didn't realize we had this
problem until we busted our first one. Since then, we have learned how to
tackle it.

Middleton recently completed Drug Enforcement Agency certification on
clandestine laboratories. Executing an arrest on a lab is very labor
intensive and still usually takes about 20 or 30 hours from start to finish.

"There is a lot of surveillance involved in this process," said Middleton.
"Once the initial intelligence comes in, it goes pretty quick. It keeps us
all really busy. What amazes me is that a lot of these manufacturers think
they are working in the shadows that the law enforcement doesn't know what
they are doing. But I can just about guarantee you that if you are involved
in or manufacturing meth in this county, we pretty much know what you are
doing and we've got information and a file on that person. People don't
know that their names are in a file. It's just a matter of proving it. It's
only a matter of time P because there are only so many hours in the day and
we are a small department.

These things move fast; because labs are so mobile, we may get information
that there is a lab at such-and-such an address and if we don't move on
that information today, that lab is probably going to be moved by next
week. The actual investigations are not that difficult."

With Middleton certified, that cuts the amount of time the department has
to wait on DEA, because he and the other certified officers can do a lot of
the work for the DEA without having to wait on them to come from Cincinnati.

Middleton's familiarity with meth, however, has not dulled his aversion to
the drug and what it does to people.

"There for a while I thought this was being exaggerated and that these
chemicals were not really all that dangerous. I was getting complacent.
Then we had the explosion out on Fields Lane and I got to see firsthand how
dangerous these chemicals really are. Along with the training I got at
Quantico, Va., it opened my eyes even further.

"I got more information about the effects these chemicals have on your
body; it may not kill you today but the effects of this for years and years
is not good."

At the Fields Lane meth lab, something went wrong and the lab exploded.
Later, infection and injuries sustained in the blast caused the death of
two people.

"I've seen some meth labs that are very stable, and I really wasn't too
worried. But it seems like the longer they have been manufacturing, the
sloppier they get, and the sloppier they get, the more unstable that lab
becomes. I've seen some that are so unstable, like the one in Mowrystown
with the anhydrous leak. I thought well, I'm not going in there. It
wouldn't have taken anything to have set that lab off, and with gunshots
being fired, I don't know how it didn't. There was also a hot plate in
there that was turned on; and the hotter it got, the greater the chance of
explosion, but someone had to go in there and turn it off. If it had gone
up, there was an entire block of town that was going to burn, so you can't
just walk away. But it can be a little intimidating.

"Every one is different. You try to put down a list of ingredients for
these labs, and what chemicals you know you are going to deal with, but
each cook uses different ingredients and different processes."

Unfortunately, law enforcement personnel across the Midwest have seen an
even more dangerous trend developing with the start of more and more red
phosphorous labs. The labs are known as "Red P" labs.

"Red phosphorus is really scary," said Middleton. "You could actually
breathe phosphine gas for 10 to 15 seconds and never know it P and it is
extremely deadly. Just several breaths can cause permanent lung damage and
you don't know it until you've been overcome. We haven't had any Red P labs
here yet, but they are extremely dangerous."

Highland County Sheriff's Office Detective Chuck Middleton displays his
drawer of methamphetamine files. "People don't know that their names are in
a file. It's just a matter of proving it," said Middleton.