METH MAKING HEADWAY INTO AREA

Gainesville for years has been one of Florida's primary drug marketplaces.

Ecstasy, GHB, Oxy, Rohypnol, Ketamine - all have a following here.

But one drug has been slow to sweep in, until now.

Methamphetamine.

The home-cooked stimulant that speeds the nervous system into hyperdrive
has long been a problem in the Southwest and has also found a following in
the Midwest.

But with several recent arrests in the Gainesville area, including two in
the past month, law enforcement officials say methamphetamine - commonly
called meth - is on the upswing in a big way here.

"It's becoming more prevalent. It is replacing crack cocaine in some areas.
It is rural - it is not so much the college kids," said Dick McEnany,
director of the Gainesville office of the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration. "We've been very, very busy with it. It's definitely taken
off on us."

Meth typically is made in home labs using over-the-counter medicines
combined with chemicals that can blow up a block of homes if not used properly.

University of Florida pharmacy professor Paul Doering said meth is a potent
stimulant with a high that can last for hours.

And it's cheap: $5 will buy a six-hour high.

"The effects on the body are very much like cocaine, but instead of lasting
30 minutes, it can last four to six hours. As a result, gram for gram, it
is a more efficient and more affordable high," Doering said. "It's easily
manufactured in home laboratories using fundamental, rudimentary starting
materials - over-the-counter cold medicines that can be converted into
methamphetamine."

The use of amphetamine stimulants began in the 1930s with a Benzedrine
inhaler, according to DEA.

Methamphetamine - a variant in the amphetamine family - was first marketed
legally as Methedrine.

Abuse of the drugs began in the 1960s - truckers used them to stay on the
road, women used them for weight control, athletes used them to perform
better and train longer, and a subculture of "speed freaks" sprang up.

"If you're into old music you will remember Bob Dylan singing about
methamphetamine," Doering said. "I remember as a young college student here
in 1967 living in Murphree dorm, people could hook you up with speed when
it came time for exams. These drugs went away for a time and it seems to
have come back with a vengeance."

Bikers and other gangs in the western United States began making meth to
meet the demand, DEA said. Mexican traffickers started pouring homemade
meth into the United States in the mid-90s, originally to Mexican-American
communities in the West and Midwest.

Now, amateur chemists are making the stuff all over the country, and
increasingly in North Central Florida.

DEA Chief Asa Hutchinson has been on a 32-state tour warning about meth.
"It's the number one drug problem in rural America," he said, noting that
DEA recorded 4,189 meth labs in 1998 and 12,953 in 2001.

Easier to come by and make

Much of Gainesville's drug scene is dominated by the club drugs favored by
college and high-school students - primarily Ecstasy, said police and drug
experts.

Meth so far is more popular with a non-college, working-class user,
officials said.

"In Alachua County, it's here, but we haven't found it yet - at least to
the degree we're seeing in Marion, Columbia, Dixie, Suwannee and that
bunch," McEnany said.

"It's easier to come by and make than crack. You can walk into the stores
and buy the ingredients, then go to the rural areas and do your thing."

Clandestine meth labs are often set up in rural areas. Trailers and
run-down homes are favorites, police say.

Operators can run labs more secretly in rural areas - an important need
when the cooking process involves chemicals that are not only explosive but
smelly.

Some DEA agents and police in the region are now being trained how to
safely investigate labs in anticipation of finding more of them.

The Dixie County lab that police found several weeks ago was typical of
clandestine meth labs - the chemicals in it could have killed officers if
ignited.

"The one in Dixie had a pretty long driveway, and you could smell the ether
from the street," McEnany said. "We're training quite a few of the local
departments and some of our own people in being clandestine-lab certified -
putting in the suits and the masks. The ether in Dixie could have leveled
the property had it blown up. It's very dangerous."

Use of the drug is also dangerous. Bruce Goldberger, a UF associate
professor and forensic toxicologist who does testing for several medical
examiners, said the drug has been responsible for several overdose deaths
in the region in the past year.

Meth can overstimulate the body, causing increasing blood pressure and
heart rate.

"Strokes have been reported, arrhythmia has been reported. People can
become very paranoid using the drug, just like cocaine," Goldberger said.

Doering said meth seems to be more popular with working-class people and
has had a reputation as a biker drug.

But in this region, meth is gaining popularity with other groups, Doering said.

"Trust me, just like Ecstasy has now found its way into all quarters of our
population, it's just a matter of time before the college student discovers
methamphetamine," he said.

"Two years ago, I predicted an epidemic of methamphetamine in our area
because of the trends in the West. Apparently that's happening now."