RURAL DRUG MAKERS VEX AUTHORITIES

'Meth Cookers' Exert Potent Impact In Ozarks

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. - Six years ago, methamphetamine laboratories began to
emerge from the hollows and crags at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains.
There is no sign that they're slowing down.

Unlike other types of methamphetamine, the concoction produced in these
labs is more potent, more accessible, and heading east.

Meth is a stimulant like cocaine. It can be made from lithium batteries,
anhydrous ammonia (a fertilizer), and over-the-counter cold remedies such
as Sudafed, which contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

This year, Missouri surpassed California as the nation's leader in raids on
such drug laboratories and in discovery of toxic dumps related to
methamphetamine, the Missouri Highway Patrol reported.

The ripple effect is felt in the rapidly filling burn units, mental health
clinics, courtrooms, and cemeteries. And worry about
methamphetamine-related problems is keeping law enforcement officers awake
at night.

"You hear about anhydrous ammonia tanks being stolen, ephedrine tablets
stolen, a mom-and-pop crime spree stealing meth ingredients," said James M.
Topolski, director of evaluation, policy, and ethics at the Missouri
Institute of Mental Health. "I started to collect headlines, and it got to
be too much."

Methamphetamine manufacturing began in California, where it was produced at
40 percent purity by organized crime syndicates. But people began to
realize that they could make more potent forms of the drug at home with
drugstore ingredients.

Today, Missouri is pocked with hundreds of small labs creating an ephedrine
drug with 95 percent to 98 percent purity. Unlike West Coast
methamphetamine production, these labs are tougher to find. The meth they
create is more addictive and the combustible chemicals they use leave
behind toxic waste that seeps into the porous limestone bedrock of the
region, poisoning the land and the water supply.

"This is dangerous stuff," said Mike Elliott, head drug enforcement
detective in Poplar Bluff and Butler County. "These guys think they're
wizards. They're superstitious and paranoid.

"One guy thought an agent was under his house and shot up the floorboards,"
he said. "Another comes running out of his trailer shooting into trees
thinking he saw police. We've had to fight people [who are] strung out. How
do you wrestle with people who don't feel pain?"

In the lexicon of meth, those who make the drug are "cookers," though they
prefer to think of themselves as modern-day moonshiners, Elliott said. The
drug they make is often called "Nazi dope," because it is widely believed
that the Nazis were given methamphetamine.

"It's a good drug if you're a Nazi soldier," Elliott said. "It makes you
paranoid, aggressive, and keeps you from being hungry."

Drug enforcement officials in Butler County say they are at the apex of the
state's methamphetamine problem, mainly because Poplar Bluff is the largest
city in this Ozark foothills area.

But few rural counties in the state have avoided problems with
methamphetamine and the drug is quickly moving east, even though federal
and state drug enforcement agencies in Missouri continue to raid labs and
make arrests.

Law enforcement officers in Illinois, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania have been
inquiring about Missouri methamphetamine labs and methods.

It has taken time to put together a unified effort between local and
federal drug enforcement agencies and the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources, which oversees toxic waste cleanup. A few years ago, local
police officers investigating small methamphetamine labs did not fully
understand the dangers and often stumbled through the labs filled with
highly combustible chemicals without knowing what to remove as evidence.

"The reality of it is [agents in Missouri] have paid a huge price in men,
material, and marriages," said Elliott, who has been hospitalized twice for
methamphetamine-related lung ailments.

But the rural methamphetamine problem has little to do with poverty or
income. Cookers in these areas, hidden in remote locations with easy access
to farm fertilizers, make the drug for personal consumption, for family,
and for friends.

Methamphetamine is cheaper than cocaine and the effect can last for days.
Meth addicts are "almost all white, young, blue collar, with a surprising
amount of women," said Topolski. "About 40 percent of meth abusers are women."

Missouri legislators recently voted to limit the quantity of cold medicine
a single person may purchase. Cities such as St. Charles and St. Peters
have passed ordinances to keep all cold remedies behind drugstore counters.

But unlike on the West Coast, lab raids do not make much of an impact in
methamphetamine manufacturing or use in Missouri, where the small labs
sprout up like weeds.

"It's the difference between putting out a house fire and putting out a
brush fire," Elliott said. "Dopers don't quit."