POLICE LIEUTENANT TELLS ROTARIANS ABOUT METH

Oak Ridge Police Lt. Mike Uher told members of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge
Thursday how to make methamphetamine.

Uher spoke to the club during its regular lunch session Thursday and talked
about what chemicals are used to make clandestine meth labs.

"I'll give you the ingredients to make meth but I will not give you the
recipe," Uher told the group.

Uher said a person can go to Wal-Mart and purchase $200 worth of legal
products and use those products to make $2,000 worth of meth for the street.

Uher said local methamphetamine manufacturers can be anyone's friends or
associates who "make it, sell it, use it and take the money from selling it
to buy more ingredients."

Uher said he tells his officers that if they see packages of Sudafed and
Drano and coffee filters in a car when it is stopped for a traffic
violation, "arrest the driver."

"If he doesn't have snot running out of his nose, he doesn't need four
boxes of Sudafed," Uher said. He also said he tells his officers to use
their own discretion and common sense when making an arrest. He said most
of the officers know who the offenders are.

Uher showed the group a cardboard box, about 20 inches by 20 inches, and
said "this is a meth lab."

The box contained all the basic ingredients to make meth. All the items
were purchased at local businesses and were easily obtained.

Uher described the methods for making meth: Red phosphorus method, the Nazi
method, and methcathinone.

He said the Oak Ridge Police Department is the only agency reporting seeing
the methcathinone method. He said the method is the most common in this
area and the most deadly.

Answering questions from the group, Uher explained that the Nazi method got
its name because "they were all on it." He said Adolf Hitler was a
methamphetamine user.

He also said that although the military and other groups use certain drugs
described as "speed," there's a big difference in pharmaceutical and
clandestine.

Chief David H. Beams described that a lab becomes "mobile" because it can
be moved quickly.

He said people making meth do not stay in one place very long.

"They get out of jail from a bust in Oak Ridge and go to Marlow," he said.