OFFICIALS PREDICT STATE METHAMPHETAMINE "EPIDEMIC"

BATON ROUGE (AP) - Federal officials predict that Louisiana needs to
prepare for a big increase in the use of methamphetamine, the powerful
stimulant also known as crank, speed and crystal.

"I think this is going to be our year," said Kevin Harrison, who runs the
Baton Rouge office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Methamphetamine was popular in the '70s and '80s, and had a resurgence
starting in California in the early 1990s. It spread east, saturating the
Midwest by the middle of the decade.

"It's going to be a big problem," U.S. Attorney David Dugas told the Baton
Rouge Press Club last month. "It's going to be an epidemic."

DEA records indicate that in 1999, the latest year for which figures are
available, 334 clandestine meth labs were busted in Arkansas. Eight were
seized in Louisiana.

The Florida Parishes alone have matched the entire 1999 seizure figure in
the first three months of this year. Livingston Parish has seen at least
five busts of either active labs or lab setups. St. Helena Parish has had
at least two and St. Tammany at least one.

Howard Pentes, a forensic scientist who runs the drug section of the state
police Crime Lab, said he's already seen more meth come in so far this year
than in all of last year.

Most of it comes in paper-bag colored chunks that resemble clumps of brown
sugar.

Users commonly mix the granules with water, heat it and possibly filter out
some impurities before injecting it, Pentes said.

Ascension Parish had a recent seizure of a small amount of pure crystal
meth, which is white and looks like kosher salt.

Pentes said crystal meth is typically smoked in a pipe.

Dugas said his first inkling of the meth problem was when he went to a
Washington, D.C., gathering of U.S. Attorneys to discuss terrorism. The
first question his peers asked him was not about terrorism but about the
severity of his district's methamphetamine problem.

Dugas gathered federal, state and local law enforcement and prosecution
officials in March for a "meth summit."

The group counted about 50 lab busts across the state during the past six
months, Dugas said.

"Law enforcement believes it was some individuals that were in the Arkansas
area and then came back to the rural areas of Livingston and Tangipahoa,"
he said.

Dugas said it took a couple of months after those first busts before it
became clear what was happening.

"Early January was when we started realizing this was a trend," he said.

David Gorman, director of the Tri-Parish Narcotics Task Force which covers
Tangipahoa, St. Helena and Livingston parish, said that meth labs were
pushed out of Arkansas and started moving in to Louisiana because there are
no statutes here for the theft of annhydrous ammonia.

Theft of the precursor material once was a misdemeanor in Louisiana, he
said. Now, it's a felony.

However, Louisiana doesn't have a precursor law, which makes it hard to
convince a jury when a manufacturer is caught with all of the necessary
ingredients for a de facto lab, Gorman said.

Now, Dugas is working to arrange federal training for local law enforcement
officers to help them recognize and safely raid meth labs.

Scott Perrilloux, 21st Judicial district attorney for Livingston,
Tangipahoa, and St. Helena parishes, has indicted 52 people in meth cases,
he said. All but five of those have been since October.

Dugas said its important for federal authorities to take meth cases where
appropriate because the meth manufacturing labs are so portable that
operators often move from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Ponchatoula Police Chief Tim Gideon said this morning that meth labs can
even be set up in the back of cars, making raids more difficult.

"We are aware it's here," Gideon said, adding that Ponchatoula works with
all of the other agencies within the parish in a joint venture to put a
stop to the problem of methamphetamines.

A problem of this magnitude requires that law enforcement officials be more
vigilant, he said.

"We are more vigilant than in the past," Gideon said.

Gorman agreed that it's difficult to catch moving labs or "suitcase labs"
since manufacturers of the drug can carry all of the ingredients in a
suitcase to stay mobile.

"Since January 2000, we've seized 36 labs and arrested 68 manufacturers and
top lieutenants," Gorman said.

"We've just skimmed the top," he said of the arrests. "We're gonna keep
doing what we're doing. We'll keep making busts. We'll keep making arrests."