SOUTHERN ILLINOIS OFFICIALS TRY TO TURN BACK THE TIDE

Eager to snare a methamphetamine maker one night, Illinois police prepared
to set up a sting outside a branch of Wabash Valley Service Co.

Among its many products, the business peddles anhydrous ammonia to farmers
who use it as a fertilizing aid on their crops.

However, that chemical also has an illicit use. Among members of the drug
community, anhydrous ammonia is used in producing meth, a stimulant drug
also known as "crank."

The anhydrous ammonia is hard to come by for anyone not using it
agriculturally, so police figured if they made it easy to steal a little,
they'd catch a drug maker for sure.

Little did they know on that night in Hamilton County, it would be like
watching ants swarm to a spilled soda.

As they pulled up to the store, there were already people sneaking inside,
trying to get a gallon of the highly volatile chemical from an
industrial-size container into a 20-pound propane tank like those found on
gas grills.

"It's a drug that is cheap to produce, and they can also make money doing
it, and support their own (drug) habit. And we're seeing just about
everyone do this: the young and old, men and women, everyone." U Capt. Phil
Sylvester, Zone 7 commander for the Illinois State Police

Police ran the prospective thieves off and waited on their main target.
When the man showed up, officers tailed him from the scene, arresting him
after a car chase that ended several miles away in a wreck.

Investigators congratulated each other on a successful night and went back
to secure the Wabash Valley Service Co. branch. When they got there, what
they found should have surprised them, but it didn't: There were even more
people there trying to steal chemicals.

"It was something else," said Don Bierman, an area manager for the company.
"But it shows they way things are with this drug (meth) around here."

Meth, police say, is a huge problem in Southern Illinois.

In the 32 counties south of Interstate 70, the frequency with which
officers are finding the labs used to create the drug is increasing
dramatically.

In 1998, officers found nine labs in the area. Last year, the number was up
to 139. The latest statistics available for 2002, those tallied through
mid-August, showed police at 143 labs and counting.

Statewide in 1997, there were 24 seizures in Illinois and 98 the next year.
The number jumped to 246 in 1999, 403 in 2000 and 666 last year.

It is a combination of two factors: Police are looking more closely for
those making the drug, and more people are learning how to make meth.

Its appeal is that it is cheap to make and profitable to sell. A single
gram of crank brings in $100 on the street.

"It's a drug that is cheap to produce, and they can also make money doing
it, and support their own (drug) habit," said Capt. Phil Sylvester, Zone 7
commander for the Illinois State Police. "And we're seeing just about
everyone do this: the young and old, men and women, everyone."

Methamphetamine, produced from chemicals that are, for the most part,
easily accessible, began showing up in the 1990s.

Greg Hanisch, a White County sheriff's deputy who also works as an
inspector for the state police's drug task force, said the drug first
appeared in the area in 1992, as finished product arriving from California.

"In our area, this is our main concern," said Hanisch. "In my work, 100
percent of my caseload is meth cases. The phone rings everyday around here
about meth. It's hard to devote the kind of time needed on this problem."

And if not for federal assistance, it would be a very pricey issue for
local governments, as well.

Each time police find a meth lab two officers, wearing special hazard suits
are dispatched to take it apart. An environmental services company must
then take care of any hazardous chemicals.

The resulting cost, at minimum, is $2,000. Larger labs or those with
excessive amounts of chemicals, can cost more than twice that much to clean up.

Sylvester said the Drug Enforcement Administration pays those costs for
Southern Illinois counties.

Add to that the immense amount of paperwork that agencies must file with
the Occupational Safety & Health Administration and other federal agencies,
and the drug turns into a bureaucratic headache.

Trying to turn back the tide, police agencies in Southern Illinois have
taken to the offensive to fight meth. Most weeks, officers hold educational
seminars for schools, clubs and businesses, informing them how to spot - or
smell - methamphetamine production in their neighborhoods.

The odor of ether is usually a giveaway. Businesses are asked to look out
for people buying large quantities of cold medicines that contain
pseudoephedrin, another meth ingredient.

"We've developed a good working relationship with places like Wal-Mart and
Kroger's," Sylvester said.

Now, even the remnants of the ingredients are a problem. Hanisch said he'll
let anyone, on any day, pick out a road in the Carmi area, and he'll set
out down that path. Within a couple of hours, he promises to have found
ingredients for or remnants of the needed chemicals and products to make meth.

"They're making this stuff in their cars as they go down the road, and then
throwing the stuff out the car window," he said.

Police also are working with the state's attorney in each county,
suggesting that in any case where a child is found near where meth makers
are cooking batches of the drug, additional "drug-endangered child" charges
be filed, which could result in longer prison sentences.

Even scientists are getting in on the fight, working to add a chemical to
anhydrous ammonia that, while continuing to make it useful to farmers,
would render it worthless to meth makers.

Wabash Valley Service Co. loses tens of thousands of dollars each year
because of anhydrous ammonia theft, Bierman said, but so far, the new
research has yielded little.

"If it was easy, it would have been done by now," he said.

Even if the chemical additive works, Hanisch said, the addicts and their
suppliers will find other means to produce the drug.

"If (the usage level) doesn't stay the same, I'm afraid it will only grow,"
he said.