COPS WAGE WAR ON METH

Drug Labs Targeted For Busts

City cops are in a rush to slow down speed production after a spike this
year in methamphetamine lab busts.

And an undercover drug detective hopes new police training helps cops put
pressure on methamphetamine manufacturing at the super-sized labs and their
portable partners.

"We've found labs in trunks of cars before. It can be two pop bottles joined
together," said meth-lab expert Det. Darcy Strang. "We've found them in
houses, trunks of cars - actually in a suitcase in the parking lot of a
church."

Arrests are expected to jump again in 2003 as city police put speed
manufacturers under the microscope. Cops hope to make a three-hour meth-lab
training course mandatory for patrol officers in the new year, Strang said.

"Once everybody's actually trained, I guarantee you the amount of drug busts
we do will go up in relation to methamphetamine, because they'll know what
to look for. Right now, it's relatively new."

Police have snuffed out about 12 labs this year. The labs are designed to
produce speed with volatile solvents like ether or toluene, corrosive acids,
and powders that can be dangerous to breathe, like red phosphorus, Strang
said.

"Sometimes you'll see garbage that they throw away is the toxic-waste kind,
like maybe solvents, coffee filters that are red because there's a
red-phosphorus method - they'll use coffee filters to filter out a lot of
this junk. Even copious amounts of pseudoephedrine-tablet boxes (cold
medication)."

Strang and drug-section Det. Pete Cherniawsky were trained in September to
safely investigate the labs at an FBI and CIA facility in Virginia, and two
forensics cops travelled there this month to take the course.

City cops established a clandestine laboratory investigative team in the
spring, made up of drug and tactical officers, the police explosives
disposal unit, emergency medical support paramedics and contacts with
Edmonton's dangerous goods team, firefighters, and hospital staff, Strang
said.

Their plans went into action last month when cops shut down a superlab in
west Edmonton.

On Nov. 28, a west-end warehouse owner reported the biggest meth lab ever
uncovered in Alberta to Edmonton police, at 17826 107 Ave. The nine-day-old
lab was capable of pumping out nearly $1 million in drugs a day.

The major bust came only 10 days after Mounties and city police ended a
two-month undercover operation that shut down two large labs in Spruce Grove
and one in Edmonton. Police seized more than $500,000 in methamphetamine and
arrested alleged key players in the trade.

"We decided to form this special team so that we had resources to call upon,
because we saw that methamphetamine was becoming more and more of a concern
in the city," Strang said. "We were concerned we were going to hit something
like this, so we're really glad we were prepared."

The orchestrated approach is essential to protect police and the public,
said tactical's acting Staff Sgt. Terry Rocchio.

"You're worried about explosions or fires if they're in a building or a
hotel. Our job is to go in and make sure the location is safe and secure,"
he said.

Rocchio's tactical team took a three-day emergency-entry training course in
October from experts at the Las-Vegas-based Clandestine Laboratory
Investigators Association.

Tactical officers are the first to search and secure the labs, and make
arrests, Rocchio said. And they have to remember some of their equipment -
like flash-bangs - can't be used because they could spark an explosion.

"We'll be wearing some type of gas mask, protective clothing - things we can
dispose of, like booties and gloves."

Tactical team officers are also buying the self-contained breathing
apparatus gear provided to drug cops, he said.

Canadian law enforcement is scrambling to head off the kind of
methamphetamine lab problem that's plaguing the United States in cities like
Detroit, said Sgt. Ian Sanderson with RCMP K-Division's drug awareness
service.

"We're talking within the last year, there's been some significant advances
in the number of communities (making speed) in rural Alberta, and we know
that if we don't do anything about it that it can become a problem of
epidemic proportions and be extremely taxing to the community."

Speed is a "highly addictive" and "powerful" drug with serious health risks,
Sanderson said. "The longevity of those who use it chronically is not
stellar. You tend to have premature deaths due to health concerns for people
who are chronic users over a number of years."

Health Canada is attempting to follow the U.S. lead and help cops battle the
problem by making it tougher to get the drugs and chemicals needed to
produce speed.

The department's new Precursor Control Regulations, under Canada's
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, will take effect Jan. 9 and set out
licensing and permit requirements for importing and exporting some of the
substances, including pseudoephedrine and ephedrine.

The controls over distributing and selling the substances takes effect in
July, and additional substances will fall under those rules next January.