WE'RE GETTING A HANDLE ON THE METH MESS

Last year, 1,890 meth-lab sites were cleaned up in Washington, and we have
the Exxon Valdez to thank.

No, Alaska's epic environmental disaster cannot be blamed for all the toxic
chemicals cooked together prior to being smoked, injected or snorted.

What the massive oil spill inspired was creation of this state's impressive
hazardous-materials response team.

Collecting and disposing of the deadly debris from society's pernicious
methamphetamine addiction began as an incidental task that became a routine
assignment.

Years ago, a line in a movie, "Give me Librium or give me meth," could get
a huge laugh. Talking with U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Vancouver, takes any
humor out of the quip.

Early last year, Baird and three other congressmen organized a Meth Caucus
on Capitol Hill that now has 85 Republicans and Democrats from around the
country. Meth production is epidemic, and rural America is especially hard
hit. Isolation puts distance between meth cooks and the cops, and farm work
is rich with chemicals for meth.

Baird was a clinical psychologist before entering Congress, and his
descriptions of the addictive power of meth are harrowing.

Meth does everything from rot teeth to ruin kidneys, and makes jobs and
families irrelevant. Meth's seductive power is the intense and sustained
feeling of euphoria and well-being that can last up to six hours. Meth hits
the pleasure receptors in the brain. The satisfactions of daily life that
normally trigger the same chemical response cannot compete. Eventually, the
drug-induced good times are separated by anger, panic and paranoia.

Meth-lab numbers are startling, but I want to find good news in the
statistics along with the numbing bad news for human health and public safety.

In 1992, 40 meth labs were found in the entire state. Police exposed them
or they were abandoned and discovered. Last year, Grays Harbor County alone
had 41. Pierce County has carried the dubious distinction as the state's
meth capital for years. The county's 2001 tally was 589 sites, although the
trend line was down. Slower growth.

I am straining for optimism, but I think it is justified. Some of the
statistical growth is a result of better reporting and law enforcement.
Police are learning what to look for, and they are going after the bad
guys, not always just reacting.

More sites being found also represents a grim technological leap in the
illicit trade.

An older style of meth production, known as the red phosphorous method,
required more makeshift chemistry apparatus, and lots of boiling to cook
down a nasty pottage of chemicals.

Foul odors, explosive vapors and lots of time for accidents and mistakes
were a lethal hallmark of the process.

That changed with the adoption of the Birch reduction method, a way of
using selected chemicals to do the work themselves in less time. Rumored to
be the way Germany produced stimulants for World War II pilots, it's
commonly described as the Nazi method.

Newer recipes for meth are an even better chemical fit with the brain, and
the whole wretched process became easier and infinitely more portable.
Clandestine labs can be concealed in a car trunk, with batches of meth
cooked just about anywhere, from apartments to freeway rest areas.

Everything is jerry-built with lots of improvisation and duct tape. A
barbecue's propane cylinder is converted into a high-pressure manufacturing
device. What the cleanup crews find is a time bomb. None of the fittings
and metal walls were designed for the corrosive contents forced into them.

One pound of methamphetamine product creates up to 10 pounds of highly
toxic refuse that is abandoned, dumped on the ground or poured into a
stream or sewer or otherwise inflicted on innocent society.

The state Department of Ecology has 19 hazardous-material technicians, with
10 dedicated to cleaning up meth labs. Wages and disposal costs are paid by
a tax on hazardous chemicals and bulk oil.

The Legislature did a respectable job of providing more spill-response
workers when a thin crew was being run ragged.

If the haz-mat fund is hurt by the recession, especially low oil receipts,
this vital job has to be covered. The cost is minimal, and the work is
specialized and exacting. Cleanup is a role apart from law enforcement.

Baird and his Meth Caucus are working to get more money for law-
enforcement training and for concentrating police activity in High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, a federal designation money follows.

Off-the-shelf toxic chemicals and step-by-step instructions on Internet
sites have meth cooks teaching others and addicts producing their own supplies.

They are killing themselves and mauling the environment at the same time.
Victimless drug crime remains an oxymoron.