Pubdate: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 Source: Baltimore Sun (MD) Copyright: 2002 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper. Contact: http://www.sunspot.net/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37 Author: Jason Song TAKING DRUG FIGHT TO THE LAB Compound: Officials Hope An Iron Additive Will Make Anhydrous Ammonia A Lot Less Appealing To Thieves Who Steal It To Produce Methamphetamine. At first, Danny Akin couldn't figure out why someone would want to steal anhydrous ammonia from the locked tanks in back of his store near Topeka, Kan. The fertilizer can nauseate people, burn their skin and "if you get some in your eye, you'll probably lose it," says Akin, who manages STE Ag Services, a farming supply business, and wears gloves and goggles when he handles anhydrous ammonia. But four years, untold broken locks and nearly 50 thefts later, Akin knows why people steal the toxic substance -- to produce an illegal drug called methamphetamine, otherwise known as speed or meth. "People will do anything to get their high," Akin says. "I just hope people figure out a way to stop them." Akin's hope might be realized by Craig A. Kelly, a chemist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in North Laurel. After two years of work, Kelly has found an iron compound he believes will make anhydrous ammonia much less useful in the production of methamphetamine. Farmers and law enforcement officials have high hopes for Kelly's work, which has passed limited laboratory tests but remains to be field tested on a large scale. Speed is one of the fastest-growing drugs in the United States, and thefts of anhydrous ammonia have skyrocketed in farming communities. As thefts have increased, so have accidents -- a small Louisiana town was evacuated in 2000 after thieves accidentally released an ammonia cloud -- and farmers are worried about their liability in case of disaster. "We're hoping this additive will be the magic bullet that stops these thefts and ... we need it to happen as quickly as possible," says Douglas Wareham, senior vice president of the Kansas Agribusiness Retailers Association. In the late 1990s, people discovered they could produce meth -- a stimulant that can keep users up for days -- by mixing anhydrous ammonia, lithium and cold medicine. The process is simple and requires little equipment -- sometimes just a plastic jug and a T-shirt to filter the chemicals. "Anyone who can read can make meth," says Dale Hinz, a detective sergeant with the state police in Michigan, where he and other law enforcement officers have seized 160 meth laboratories this year. Use of anhydrous ammonia to produce meth is especially popular because farmers often store the fertilizer in large, unguarded tanks. Because thieves rarely take more than several gallons of anhydrous ammonia at a time, many farmers do not notice that the fertilizer is missing. And when they do, they often shrug off the loss because the fertilizer is relatively cheap -- about $250 a ton. But experts say increased use of the fertilizer to produce drugs has led to a huge jump in its black market price. A gallon has sold for nearly $400, according to Hinz. And growth in the use of the fertilizer has been accompanied by enormous increases in the numbers of seized drug laboratories. In fiscal year 1995, the Drug Enforcement Agency busted 818 laboratories. In fiscal year 2001, the agency seized 7,447, an increase of more than 800 percent. Anhydrous ammonia thefts are rare in Maryland because few local farmers use the product. But in the Midwest, where anhydrous ammonia is most commonly used, the increase of thefts has been explosive. Kansas Bureau of Investigations officials seized 210 meth laboratories in 1999. A year later they seized 619, and last year they seized 847. Meth laboratories are so common that David Hutchings, an investigator with the KBI who often speaks at schools, tells children that he "would be very surprised if they had not had a meth lab in their neighborhood, regardless of what type of place they live in." The thefts have taken a toll on farmers, who have tried to guard their tanks with locks, fences and motion detectors with little success. Thieves cut the hoses on one of STE Ag Services' tanks in October. And while Akin was not happy about the $5 loss of ammonia and the $100 worth of damage to the hoses, he was more bothered by the potential for disaster. A cluster of houses is less than a half-mile south of the store, and "if the thieves left a valve open and there's a wind blowing ..." Akin trails off. "Well, I don't want to think about it." Kansas farm experts were so concerned about such an incident that they pushed the state Legislature to pass a law last year that gave anhydrous ammonia sellers a four-year window of immunity during which they are largely protected from being sued by anyone who is harmed by anhydrous ammonia. But farm advocates are concerned that when the window expires in 2006, they could be liable for huge damages. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if a meth cooker harms someone else by leaving a valve open or something, that it would be big trouble," Wareham says. That is why Wareham and others are hopeful about Kelly's work, which was financed by a $500,000 grant from the federal government. The iron compound interferes with the conversion process and significantly lowers the amount of meth the reaction produces. It has proved successful in lab tests and in a small trial Kelly conducted on a patch of corn grown at a test site on the Eastern Shore. Some fertilizer companies have fretted about the potential extra cost of adding the iron compound and whether it could damage farm equipment, but Kelly estimates that the compound will add $1 a ton to the price of anhydrous ammonia, and he says it has not affected equipment on small tests. Kelly hopes to test his drug-fighting anhydrous ammonia on a larger scale within a year. Meanwhile, thefts of the fertilizer have been so widespread in some parts of the country that some farmers have stopped using anhydrous ammonia. "By the end, I thought that if I caught one of those people [who was stealing from me] I'd want to kill them, I'd get so mad," says Rick Piper, who farms 1,400 acres of wheat 20 miles outside of Pendleton in eastern Oregon. Piper stopped using anhydrous ammonia about a year ago. Piper used to keep three tanks of anhydrous ammonia on his property and said that he was being robbed almost constantly. While the thefts were aggravating, Piper was more frightened that thieves and drug users were sneaking onto his property several times a week. "It was very, very scary to know that those people were around and that you never knew what they were going to do, so I figured it wasn't worth it, and I got rid of it," Piper says. Drug enforcement officials say that the modified anhydrous ammonia could make a big difference in their ability to combat crime by allowing them to chase large importers, who often use other methods of "cooking" meth, and not small-time anhydrous cooks. "These aren't drug kingpins. Most of the time, it's somebody that's maintaining their own addiction and a few friends' addictions, so if we didn't have to investigate them, we could investigate other people," says Hinz of the Michigan State Police. That day will not come soon enough for Akin in Topeka. Until recently, the store had not been robbed for about five months, and Akin had been hoping that maybe the ammonia thieves had moved on. But as repairs were being made to his anhydrous tank hoses, Akin knew his good luck was over. "They'll probably be back next week," he says. - --- MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFlorida)