DEA: MOBILE METH LABS EXPECTED TO ROLL INTO SOUTHEAST GEORGIA

Chatham County police are hosting a meth training session for officers,
paying special attention to mobile labs.

A room at the Suburban Lodge in Garden City seemed like a safe place to
store chemicals to make methamphetamine.

Four people who pleaded guilty and were indicted this year on federal meth
charges thought so.

Before getting busted in December, they drove the chemicals to another spot
to cook the illegal drug.

Meth labs in vehicles -- where the drug either is made or the drug or its
ingredients are transported -- are expected to become more common in
Southeast Georgia. The reason: Meth makers are becoming more mobile in
response to police crackdowns on labs in rural homes, sheds and trailers.

In Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana, meth labs have been found in pickups,
tractor-trailers, car trunks, even motorcycles.

"Mobile meth labs are a response to vigorous law enforcement," said Darrin
McCullough, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia,
who is prosecuting the district's meth lab cases in Savannah.

This year, officers started targeting the homemade drug that has taken hold
in Southeast Georgia's poor and middle-class white communities. Meth labs
have mostly been found in homes this year in Effingham, Bulloch, Treutlen
and Johnson counties.

Authorities predict the meth cooks will take labs on the road to avoid
detection.

"Whenever there is aggressive law enforcement on something, the response is
for them to do whatever they can to avoid law enforcement," McCullough said.

Already this year, the U.S. Attorney's office in Savannah has issued 19
indictments for meth lab cases -- a jump from the six meth cases the office
handled last year.

This week at the Chatham County Police Department, a supervisor from the
federal Drug Enforcement Agency is teaching officers from the region about
the spread of meth--especially in mobile meth labs.

"Meth is moving this way at a rapid pace," agent Coleman Ramsey told the
officers. He supervises the DEA clandestine lab group in Atlanta.

Rolling labs allow meth cooks to hide the acrid smell the labs produce and
keep the fumes out of their homes.

"They are cooking it out in the woods, then taking it somewhere else with
chemicals in the trunk," Ramsey said.

Chasing a meth lab on wheels can also end in deadly explosions, Ramsey said.

Not only are some chemicals used to make meth extremely volatile, but
addicts, dubbed tweakers, can go days without sleep and are often paranoid
and violent.

Many will risk even their children's lives for a meth high, Ramsey said.

"The recidivism rate is worse than heroin," Ramsey said.

Instead of discarding the remnants from a meth cook at home, some meth
cookers take the toxic leftovers in vehicles and dump the pollutants in
woods or parks.

Officers need to be aware of the danger of opening anhydrous ammonia tanks
and unknown containers found in suspected rolling meth labs. Anhydrous
ammonia, a noxious, volatile compound, is a key ingredient in methamphetamine.

Thefts of anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer, have increased on south Georgia
farms, Ramsey said.

In southwest Kentucky last November, a car ferrying a container of the
substance exploded along Interstate 24, backing up traffic for miles, the
Associated Press reported. In southern Indiana, a man was arrested recently
for making meth on his motorcycle.

About 20 students and staff members were evacuated in April from Westwood
Elementary School in New Castle, Ind., after officers stopped a pickup
truck driven by a suspected meth maker. Anhydrous ammonia was found in the
back, and officers reported strong ammonia fumes.

The Associated Press reports that the number of labs found in vehicles
increased from 869 in 1999 to 1,307 in 2001. And the number of vehicles
found with chemicals or equipment used to make meth increased from 30 in
1999 to 624 in 2001, according to the DEA.

But because there is no mandatory reporting requirement, it is difficult to
gauge the total number of rolling meth labs.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

A partial list of methamphetamine labs found in vehicles in 2001 as
reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The number is not complete
because state and local police departments are not required to report the
number of labs seized.

Total--1,307

Alabama--11

California--96

Florida--5

Georgia--5

Kansas--104

Kentucky--20

Missouri--149

South Carolina--1

Washington--172