STATE URGED TO BOOST FIGHT AGAINST METH LABS

Manufacturing Is Spreading, Says U.S. Drug Enforcement Chief

Waukesha - Wisconsin's methamphetamine lab activity is on the rise, and the
state will have to step up efforts to keep the cheap and highly addictive
drug in check, the nation's drug enforcement director said Tuesday.
17369Quotable We saw it coming. In a lot of the labs that we have seized,
the people involved are just learning to do it. - Bob Sloey, director of
operations for the state Department of Justice's Division of Narcotics
Enforcement

Last year, law enforcement officials shut down 44 methamphetamine labs in
Wisconsin - "an extraordinary increase" over the one lab that was closed in
1997, said Asa Hutchinson, director of the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration. About 50 labs have already been busted this year in Wisconsin.

By comparison, every state surrounding Wisconsin closed more than 100
methamphetamine labs last year, withsome Midwest states busting between 500
and 2,200 labs. That indicates that the drug could grow in popularity here,
Hutchinson told about 130 police, prosecutors and medical professionals at
a conference on methamphetamine and club drugs such as Ecstasy.

Methamphetamine - often made with farm chemicals that are easy to obtain in
rural areas - already has been found with some frequency in western
Wisconsin, Hutchinson said.

"There's a concern it'll move eastward," he said.

Wisconsin should do everything possible to avoid the fate of states such as
California and Nevada, where "they're literally drowning in meth activity,"
Hutchinson said.

In a news conference after his speech at Waukesha County Technical College,
Hutchinson said that he believed Wisconsin's lower methamphetamine numbers
reflected less drug activity and not less enforcement.

"It's moved from the West Coast eastward," he said. "It has not totally
invaded Wisconsin yet."

Bob Sloey, director of operations for the state Department of Justice's
Division of Narcotics Enforcement, said later that he believes the state
received more forewarning than its neighbors.

"We saw it coming," Sloey said. "In a lot of the labs that we have seized,
the people involved are just learning to do it." Combating the problem

Wisconsin started seeing methamphetamine in its northwestern counties in
1997 and 1998.

State Division of Narcotics Administrator Johnnie Smith said that Wisconsin
has placed more drug enforcement agents in northwestern Wisconsin, which
has resulted "in a reduction in the growth rate of meth lab production in
Wisconsin."

Tuesday's drug summit was the fifth and final session to be held around the
state to train local law enforcement on how to detect methamphetamine labs
in their areas.

Smith urged all present to be on the lookout for not only methamphetamine
but also so-called club drugs, such as Ecstasy and gamma-hydroxybutyrate,
the so-called date-rape drug.

"It's important that we have a coordinated, comprehensive strategy," Smith
said.

In the past 18 months, Sloey said, methamphetamine labs have been
discovered in Kenosha, Janesville and Beloit - but none in Milwaukee or
Waukesha counties. A lab in Dane County was discovered when it literally
exploded, Sloey said. No one was injured.

Hutchinson said such homemade labs pose hazards to the users and the law
enforcement officers who try to shut them down. They also cause public
health problems.

Methamphetamine - dubbed the poor man's cocaine, crank, ice, chalk, glass
or yaba - is a potentially deadly concoction of cleaning solvents and farm
fertilizers such as anhydrous ammonia, which users often siphon from
ammonia tanks on farms.

The ingredients are cooked into a powder that can be smoked, injected,
snorted or swallowed. The stimulant creates a pleasurable high but also
results in paranoia, mood swings and aggressive behavior. Dangerous
side-effects

Some users hallucinate and scratch at imaginary "crank bugs" they believe
are crawling under their skin.

"It's such a highly addictive drug," Hutchinson said.

Club drugs such as Ecstasy can cause hypothermia, muscle breakdown,
seizures, strokes, brain damage and death.

Hutchinson said that a recent medical study showed a possible connection
between Ecstasy and Parkinson's disease.

Hutchinson said that some communities are "fighting back" against meth and
club drugs.

In Jackson County, Mo., he said, citizens are paying an eighth-of-a-cent
sales tax to fund methamphetamine enforcement and education.

"They drove the meth labs out of their county," he said.

In Salt Lake City, officials have restricted retail sales of
pseudoephedrine - an ingredient in methamphetamine labs - to a maximum of
three grams. As a result, production of the drug there has declined.

Hutchinson also cited national efforts to curtail drug supplies, including
the arrests last month of 115 people in 84 cities who were selling "date
rape" drugs on the Internet.

"We have made progress," he said.