EXPERTS: COMMUNITIES MUST MOVE AGAINST METH LABS

It's scary enough that labs being set up secretly and illegally to produce
methamphetamine, or "meth" are exploding in number.

It's doubly scary to know these labs could also EXPLODE, literally.

If the toll in human despair and suffering from drug sale and use wasn't
enough, there are plenty of reasons for rural Minnesota residents, law
enforcement and medical personnel to be concerned about their safety as
they respond to these emergency situations. You can call it second-hand
danger if you will, but the fact is that, if you suspect something like
meth manufacture is happening in your neighborhood, you're in danger too.
And officers or medics could face significant health risks too.

Much of a two-hour meth lab forum Tuesday afternoon dealt with these
dangers. The facts were presented by possibly the state's top expert on
meth labs, Deborah Durkin, a health studies coordinator -- and
self-described fanatic -- at the Minnesota Department of Health. During her
presentation, Durkin called for community awareness and reporting as the
greatest deterrent to the drug menace, and pointed out that many of the
victims of meth labs are children who happen to live in the home where meth
is being produced.

In a perfect world -- and Durkin is hopeful that the day is coming --
Congress or state governments would act to protect children and other first
responders who come to deal with the situation when a meth lab is
uncovered. At the present time, children are among the hidden victims,
facing dangers as serious as the drug "cookers" and users themselves.
Children living in these conditions have been found to be malnourished,
living in unsanitary conditions, injured without proper medical care,
breathing in toxic chemicals and in close proximity to weapons, needles,
flames, drugs and dangerous wiring in what is often rental housing.

Durkin said society must act to rid their communities of meth labs if only
to protect children from this form of abuse, which even includes mixing
"meth goo" in the kitchen and refrigerator with food items. Unsuspecting
children may pick up a soda container, for example, and drink the fluid
inside, which may be a toxic chemical.

The long-term effect of meth exposure is frightening. Their bodies can be
affected in the development stage, their nervous system dangerously
impacted. In the case of small children in the act of crawling, they may
get hazardous materials on their fingers and into their mouths.

Aside from poisoning, they are living in a "chaotic" environment where
parenting skills are nil. While most labs don't have children involved, the
ones that do often feature sexual assault, physical abuse, heavy metal
contamination, meth poisoning from being there and later, problems like
drug use and truancy. Babies born to meth users exhibit almost instant
problems.

The effects on children were among the most sobering on a list of ominous
facts surrounding meth labs. Pipestone County is no stranger to this
phenomena; one lab was found right in the city earlier this year, and in
Jasper, a lab was uncovered two years ago. Two months after a meth lab was
busted in nearby Sherman, another sprung up again, with one person charged
in both incidents.

Durkin became passionate about meth labs when her own neighbor became
hooked on the drug, a tragedy that ruined what had been a fine family. She
noted that she got involved in 1999 at a time when such home-made labs were
rare. Little was known about them. A year later, Durkin remembers, "my
phone started ringing, and the meth lab program was born." Minnesota
officials hit the ground running and have actively battled the problem,
right down to having Durkin travel the state to present her information to
anyone who will listen, but primarily to agency staff members and others
who will respond. Her point is simple: the increases in clandestine drug
lab activity present a great threat in many ways for residents of mostly
rural communities.

Durkin's agency at this time has no state mandate and no funds, but is
trying to educate the public that money is needed for materials and
training. The one thing that can't be done, she says, is for a community to
put its head in the sand. "The best way," she says, "to get rid of the
problem is to sing it from the rooftops. You have to let people know. You
have to do something."

That particularly applies to residents, who must let law enforcment know
when something is unusual in their neighborhood. They can do this by
observing a few symptoms of trouble:

Odors, like solvent or ether, or urine/ammonia.

The landlord or others are denied access to the house.

Windows are blacked out or vented.

When occupants go outside to smoke.

Retailers can help by noticing when people purchase with cash, and when
ingredients like Sudafed in large quantities are purchased.

When there is unusual traffic and activities, and when occupants have
expensive vehicles.

Once such a suspected lab has been suspected, law enforcement and other
emergency teams must spring into action, ensuring that they are protected
from what could be a dangerous situation inside the home. Not only will
they run into a house that is often unfit for human habitation, but they
will run into dangerous substances in unmarked jugs which can harm
responders if they so much as smell them. Meth: cheap but addictive ...

Durkin said methamphetamine is a powerfully addictive drug that compares to
cocaine only in that they both deliver effective "highs." But meth, which
is much less expense, and which can be made with common household
chemicals, holds the high longer and more powerfully. Durkin said the drug
has been around for about 100 years, but became a public problem for the
first time with the Vietnam War in the 1960s. It wasn't long that more
"professional" labs set up to produce meth were replaced by the mobile
labs, where cooks could produce the same drug cheaper, and make money at
the same time.

Eventually, the troubling meth craze spread from Mexico to California and
across the Midwest. Problems in Missouri and Montana are much worse than in
Minnesota, and officials want to ensure that they react now, rather than later.

"They're in terrible shape," she said of those states. "The governor of
Missouri said recently that the worst problem they've ever had, greater
than the farm economy, and schools, is meth."

Despite the increase in meth labs, 80% of the nation's meth still comes up
from southern states. Minnesota will have about 400 labs this year -- far
behind the thousands in Missouri -- but still ahead of last year's numbers.

Durkin said not all meth labs uncovered are being recorded. A recent fire,
she said, which killed two young children in another part of the state was
not "officially" listed as a meth-related fire, but Durkin said ingredients
for meth use were present in the home and contributed to the trailer fire
that killed the girls.

While rental homes -- which in many cases are ruined -- are most often the
site of the meth labs, they've been found in fish houses, motels, moving
cars and mobile homes. Durkin says, however, that rental houses are most
often used, contributing to another problem: loss of affordable housing.

And, she said, 15% to 20% of the meth labs are discovered when they
explode, literally, or catch fire. As emergency crews are dispatched to
deal with the emergency, they often become ill from inhaling chemical
fumes. In some cases, public servants have been disabled in the process.
Jailers have become ill as they process meth lab defendants, and ambulance
EMTs have suffered the effects, responding to a problem created by mixing
ingredients in a recipe readily available on the Internet. While those
trying to help are endangered and injured coming to the rescue, other
"cooks" are swapping secrets and tips in Internet chat rooms.

Why are meth labs popping up in rural Minnesota? Because, Durkin says, the
operation -- and smell -- is easier to hide. Most commonly using meth are
students in high school or college, and white, blue-collar people in their
20s and 30s, although some said abusers are becoming younger.

For a time, meth use wasn't identified as a culprit when teen-age girls
used it for weight control. Most use it with alcohol, which seems to
"mellow out" the drug's reaction.

Durkin said as meth labs arrive, so does an increase in crime, including
drug-related homicide. And that doesn't cover the danger meth users and
"cookers" are doing to themselves. The list of medical problems, physical
and psychological, is lengthy, and includes, at the bottom, death. But
prior to that, users and cooks are addicted to the point that their
behavior is severely impaired; long-term damage is similar to that of a
stroke, Parkinson's or Alzheimers. What is perhaps most scary is that those
most likely to use meth are eighth-graders from rural America.

"It's very scary," Durkin said. "Because this drug is so easy to get and
it's undetectable. Young people are popping up making and using this drug.
It's exciting, it's dangerous, it's cool, they think."

Most of the cooks are providing meth for themselves and one to five people,
Durkin said, but they can make up to 10 times more by selling it. Durkin
said again, "locals must come together, sit down and figure out what to do.
No one wants to be there until it's in our face. We didn't want to deal
with it. Now we have to."