Pubdate: Tue, 08 Oct 2002 Source: Huntsville Times (AL) dard.xsl?/base/opinion/1034099988322651.xml Copyright: 2002 The Huntsville Times Contact: http://www.htimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/730 FIGHTING A DEADLY DRUG Cooperation between law enforcement and communities can curtail meth labs Drugs. They're an urban problem. Usually it's the inner city, the ghetto, the places where people are herded together, that produce drug manufacturing, sales and addiction. The countryside, where folks commune with nature and pay homage to a different lifestyle, is different. That's been the standard thinking, and as with much standard thinking, it's wrong. The countryside, as Sherlock Holmes once told Dr. Watson, abounds with evils as bad or worse than the sinister city. In North Alabama, evil's name is crystal methamphetamine. It is a highly addictive "upper," offering some of the vilest attributes of crack cocaine and other kinds of "speed." And it is ravaging countrysides, particularly the Sand Mountain area. Why are rural areas so alluring to crystal meth producers? Because the smell of the chemicals used in this brain-destroying brew - battery acid, antifreeze and the always sumptuous lye - is so potent you need to be miles from folks in order to make it without calling attention to yourself. And once you've whipped up a batch, you can find your clientele, because its addictive powers are so strong that, as one physician says, "once you have tried it, you no longer have any choice." It's stimulative powers seem at first to be just the ticket for working folks with repetitive jobs and long hours. But violence, paranoia, confusion, insomnia and the overwhelming desire to get another fix eventually creep up on you like a feral cat. If you think this sounds like a threat more immediate than al-Qaida, you're probably right. And if you think it is going to take more than the standard practice of more law enforcement to target the problem, you're right again. Not that increased attention by anti-drug units won't help. It will. So will efforts to educate children about the drug and more resources for treating meth abusers. But the biggest weapon in the fight against this menace may be something the meth manufacturers hadn't counted on - other rural residents. Folks in the county usually mind their own businesses and let others go their own ways, but the increasing use of such environs for making illicit drugs has people there aroused. Meetings on the subject draw hundreds of concerned citizens. And these are people who are proving willing to work with law enforcement officers in a makeshift ''take back the mountain'' effort. Undoubtedly, they will want to work with retailers like Wal-Mart, as a successful Missouri plan did, to report suspicious sales of chemicals to law enforcement. But chemicals can be bought elsewhere. And some manufacturers have taken to distilling their chemicals while driving, which puts everyone of us in danger. In the end, it will take the kind of alertness that the U.S. government has urged us to adopt toward terror to drive away the meth makers and dealers. That primarily means stronger ties between communities and law enforcement officers than ever before. From what's transpired so far, rural residents are moving in the right direction. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh