Pubdate: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 Source: Topeka Capital-Journal (KS) Copyright: 2000 The Topeka Capital-Journal Contact: 616 S.E. Jefferson, Topeka, Kansas 66607 Website: http://cjonline.com/ Author: Susan Skiles Luke BATTLING METH CALLS FOR GROUP EFFORT Law enforcment officials meet to discuss Midwestern production of drug. COLLINSVILLE, Ill. --When U.S. Attorney Stephen Hill of Kansas City is on the road, he carries two toothbrushes. The production of methamphetamine is so prevalent in Midwestern motel rooms, he said, "If I drop one in the sink, I don't use it again. "I assume meth cooks had been there before," he said. Illinois Gov. George Ryan and Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan joined Hill and some 70 law enforcement officials from across the Midwest on Tuesday to discuss ways to work together to fight methamphetamine, a powdered stimulant easily made from common chemicals. "Midwestern states, especially in all of our rural areas, are struggling with methamphetamine," Ryan said. "As a society, we weren't tracking it as an illegal, noxious drug until the 1990s," Carnahan said. "Today, we recognize it as the serious drug it is -- as serious as crack cocaine was in the 1980s." Production of the drug -- often made in small laboratories, apartments and motel rooms -- has soared dramatically in Midwestern states since the mid-1990s, making the region the fastest growing in meth production and consumption in the United States, said Kurt Schmid, who coordinates nationwide law enforcement efforts for the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington. Consistent nationwide meth statistics are hard to find. Data collection across state lines is spotty, and states keep track of meth production differently. Still, Hill said Missouri ranks among the top meth-producing states in the country, with nearly 1,000 meth labs seized in 1999 and about the same number expected to be shut down this year. That is up from 121 in 1996. California is the top producer, with more than 2,000 meth labs seized last year, said Kirk Meyers, a clandestine-lab analyst with the California Department of Justice. That is up from 559 in 1995. Kansas and Iowa each had around 500 labs shut down last year. Kansas had four in 1994. Iowa had 31 labs seized in 1997. In Illinois, officials expect to seize more than 400 meth labs in 2000, nearly twice the number shut down last year, said Sam V. Nolen, director of the Illinois State Police. Tracking the domestic-made meth is more difficult than tracking "traditional" drugs such as cocaine and heroin, imported substances controlled largely by efforts at the borders, officials said. It also is highly flammable and toxic, making it necessary to have environmental experts on hand to clear the toxic residue. That means authorities need to work together across state and agency boundaries, even more so than in traditional drug interdiction. In the West, large-scale labs controlled by Mexican drug cartels pump out hundreds of pounds of the drug at one time, Hill said. In the Midwest, small, hard-to-spot labs in inconspicuous places -- like suburban neighborhoods and rural areas -- produce far less at one time, mainly for local users. Environmental issues set tracking meth apart most dramatically, officials said. The drug is made from a combustible combination of such common chemicals as camp-stove fuel, lye, drain cleaner, the ephedrine found in cold pills and some fertilizers, among other things. Each pound produces six pounds of toxic waste, said Lisa Boynton, a project officer at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "And that means we need training to make sure officers don't track through (a discovered lab) before going home to their families," Hill said. Some of the meth chemicals explode upon contact with water, a particular problem for firefighters who respond to fires at meth labs, officials said. "That's why the collaboration and training is so important" among agencies in different states, Schmid said. "We've got to have a strategy," he said. "We cannot be fragmented." - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck