METH MAKERS RUN SUBSTANTIAL RISKS

One week into the new year, a trend has already developed - local law
enforcement agencies are discovering methamphetamine labs at a brisk pace.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it, it's not
really a new trend, just a new year in the ongoing effort.

Finding the labs and making arrests is a good thing, but it is disturbing
that so many people are stepping up methamphetamine-making operations.

Perhaps even more disturbing is a trend Southside Police Chief Tim Diggs
spoke of after that town's first two labs were discovered last week -
personal use labs.

Southside officers were assisted by the Etowah County Drug and Major Crime
Task Force and the Alabama Department of Forensic Science after finding a
lab at a residence on Fowler's Ferry Road. Just hours earlier, officers
stopped a vehicle on Fowler's Ferry Road and found crystal meth and
containers with liquid residue consistent with the making of
methamphetamine and other precursor chemicals inside.

Cherokee County officers have found four meth labs in the last two weeks.
Marshall County drug enforcement officers found two last week, after
finding at least 45 labs in 2002.

Some law enforcement officers speculate more people are making
methamphetamine for their own use rather than buying it, because of the
availability of the chemicals used to make it. But the risks involved in
making methamphetamine at home are greater than sewing one's own clothes
rather than buying at the store or even growing marijuana rather than
buying it on the street.

Aside from the problems that meth use brings, making methamphetamine
involves ingredients that can explode and result in hazardous chemical
residues. Meth makers run far greater risk than marijuana growers of
blowing something up or burning something down.

Even if personal use methamphetamine makers safely cook up their drugs,
they still face another risk just as their counterparts who consider
meth-making a business enterprise - the risk of being discovered and arrested.

With the success law enforcement officers have had finding labs in just the
past week, that risk is obviously a substantial one.