The Elkin Board of Education unanimously approved yesterday a policy that will require random drug and alcohol testing of high-school students who participate in extracurricular activities and drive to school. An annual survey showed that there was a slight increase in drug use among some students in the Elkin City Schools. Angela Land, the schools' safety and drug coordinator, could not produce specific figures yesterday. The policy, which will begin in the fall, is a response to the survey results and parents' suggestions about preventing drug use, Land said. [continues 324 words]
Police Say That Item Can Easily Be Used As A Pipe For Crack Crack cocaine is plentiful in Winston-Salem, but police say that convenience-store owners could help reduce drug abuse by removing small glass tubes that sell for about $3 from their shelves. The tubes are often kept behind the counter, police say. They are 4 inches long and have a small, plastic rose inside. But the item has no practical use other than as a crack pipe, said police Capt. David Clayton, the commander of the department's special-investigations division. [continues 467 words]
ASHEVILLE (AP) -- The escalating problem of methamphetamine labs in North Carolina is creating a new danger for sanitation workers. Methamphetamine is made by cooking ordinary household chemicals in a process that creates hazardous waste. When law enforcement shuts down an illicit laboratory, the people left to clean up and handle the debris can be jeopardized by the flammable material and its toxic fumes. In one recent incident, Greg Watts was using a loader to move trash at the Burke County transfer station when a fire erupted in the pile of garbage. Smoke filled the station in seconds. [continues 380 words]
A legislative committee recommended yesterday that the General Assembly pass several bills designed to stiffen penalties for people who make methamphetamines. The number of meth labs discovered by authorities, particularly in Western North Carolina, have surged in recent years. State officials, particularly Attorney General Roy Cooper, have pushed for more equipment, training and enforcement tools to root out the labs. With Cooper in attendance, the committee signed off on four bills that would increase prison time for people who manufacture the drug or make it in the presence of children. A manufacturer also could be found guilty of second-degree murder if someone fatally overdoses on meth they made. [continues 131 words]
If North Carolinians want an effective law-enforcement campaign against illegal methamphetamine, they had better be ready to pay for it. Gov. Mike Easley and Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Wednesday that the state will use a $500,000 grant from the Governor's Crime Commission to buy two new mobile crime labs. That will give the state four of the vehicles, and four more are needed. The costs, of course, don't stop there. In May, Cooper will ask the legislature for 42 additional SBI positions at an annual cost of $2.04 million. The new personnel would be field agents, chemists and other lab workers. [continues 383 words]
This letter is in response to all four front-page articles published on March 19. The underlying themes of "'New' New Deal" and "Freedom of speech, Freedom of choice" are also relevant. What if there were a solution to the school board's lack of education funds, our state's tobacco woes, our dependence on foreign oil and also our extinction of birds? What if the solution could boost the textile industry, protect our forests, aerate our soil and offer pain relief? What if the solution actually could derail globalization by giving the power and wealth back to the people? [continues 164 words]
Colombian Human-Rights Leader Says U.S. Aid Should Go Toward Development A prominent Colombian human-rights activist spoke to a small audience of Winston-Salem residents last night about the issues plaguing his home country and what he thinks the U.S. government should do to make the situation better. Ricardo Esquivia visited the Triad on the last day of a two-week speaking tour. He is the vice president of the Colombian Council of Evangelical Churches. Forty years of civil war has created deep social and economic problems in Colombia. Esquivia said that the United States should direct its aid away from military efforts and toward development if it wants to end the production and flow of drugs into the states. [continues 488 words]
PHILADELPHIA - Put 30 drug-testing workers in a room together for a few hours and it isn't long before they start trading strange - and somewhat indelicate - tales of urine collection. Stories of specimens doctored to the most vivid hues of blue, green and purple, and others spiked with bleach or diluted with chewing tobacco. Talk of false penises, and synthetic urine formulated in separate his and hers versions. And accounts of mystery concoctions ingested or added to try to ensure that urine does not betray the drug use of its provider. [continues 1158 words]
About A Quarter Of The Illegal Labs Found In Homes With Children RALEIGH (AP) - Social workers may be accustomed to removing children from squalid homes, but they face threats to their own health when those homes double as methamphetamine labs, Attorney General Roy Cooper warned yesterday. As meth labs spread across the state, from the mountains of the west to the rural spaces in Eastern North Carolina, county social-services offices must equip themselves to help neglected children who have grown up around dangerous chemicals, Cooper told a meeting of the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services. [continues 398 words]
RALEIGH (AP) - A Winston-Salem man convicted of cocaine possession should get a new trial after a police officer violated the suspect's rights by having "friendly conversation" with him on the way to jail, the N.C. Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The justices, with no dissenting opinion, reversed a ruling of the N.C. Court of Appeals and threw out the conviction of Dwight Raymond Phelps. The Court of Appeals had ruled last year that the 2001 conviction should be upheld, because letting the jury hear a statement that Phelps made about having crack cocaine in his coat pocket would not have changed the outcome of the trial. [continues 303 words]
gives offenders chance to succeed Three teen-age boys with criminal histories walked into Forsyth District Court yesterday, not to face more charges but rather to stand proudly in front of family and friends who were there to applaud their accomplishments. The boys are the first graduates of a year-old program that works with juvenile offenders and their parents to get youths off drugs and help them stay in school. "It doesn't get any better than this," said Judge William Reingold, who presided over the ceremony. "We clean them up, give them some structure so that they can move forward in their lives. It sends the message that we're not going to abandon them." [continues 764 words]
Marty Luffman Spends His Days In A Subculture: An American High School. Luffman, a deputy with the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, is the school resource officer at West Forsyth High School in Clemmons. He cracks down on a variety of offenses, ranging from students speeding through the school parking lot to students fighting. And he tries to stop drug use, which goes on at West Forsyth and so many other high schools across this land. "If it's in the community, it's going to be in the school," he says. [continues 773 words]
Attorney General Roy Cooper's statewide campaign to fight the spread of methamphetamine labs could change the way North Carolinians shop for cold medicine. North Carolina is moving to join a growing number of states cracking down on methamphetamine dealers by limiting sales of cold tablets, putting them behind counters, or training store clerks to spot "suspicious" shoppers and report them to the police. Drug dealers buy over-the-counter cold remedies, nasal decongestants and asthma medicines for their active ingredients, ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. A 48-tablet pack of Sudafed yields methamphetamine worth about $72 on the street, according to police. [continues 356 words]
Winston-Salem Journal Attorney General Roy Cooper's preliminary recommendations for fighting the spread of methamphetamine are the best news yet about an issue so far characterized by bad news. His ambitious recommendations would require a lot of tax dollars, but the drug problem he and others are fighting is a big one that has been overwhelming law enforcement and emergency workers. "It's been said that the first step toward fixing a problem is acknowledging you have one," Cooper said Tuesday in Raleigh. "And here in North Carolina, we have a huge problem." [continues 336 words]
Cooper Offers Plan On Ways To Quash Drug's Production RALEIGH - Saying that it is more dangerous than crack cocaine and that Watauga County is ground zero for the drug in North Carolina, Attorney General Roy Cooper issued recommendations yesterday for efforts to combat the spread of methamphetamine. "This issue is so much more serious than crack because, No. 1, the drug produces a high that lasts so much longer," Cooper said. "And then the manufacture of methamphetamine is so dangerous - the danger of fire, the danger of explosion, the danger of toxic chemicals," he said. "That's why this is so much more dangerous." [continues 984 words]
RALEIGH -- North Carolina is building three prisons and has approved financing for three more. That may not be enough to keep up with the parade of new prisoners. The latest projections on the number of inmates indicate that the state will have to build several more prisons if legislators don't choose other options to reduce the need for cells. The North Carolina Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission's latest estimate last week indicates that the state will have 44,094 inmates behind bars by 2013, but will have only enough capacity for 37,743. [continues 272 words]
Principal at East Says Dogs, Officers Help Enforce Rules Kernersville Principal Patricia Gainey of East Forsyth High School says it is unfortunate that a student was arrested on drug charges last week after a pound of marijuana was found in a car on the school's parking lot. But the arrest also sends a message that students and parents need to hear, Gainey said. "I think it is a great sign that we are sending the message that wherever it is, we are going to find it," Gainey said. "It says that we are drug free and that if you want an education, you are going to play by our rules or go somewhere else." [continues 407 words]
Our state's methamphetamine problem is a bit overstated ("Meth manufacturers should face harder penalties, law officials say," Dec. 6). I have zero sympathy for parents who harm their children by making or using dangerous drugs, but meth is nowhere near the greatest drug threat to North Carolina's children - that would be tobacco. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids reports that 120,000 high school students in North Carolina smoke and 416,000 children are exposed to second-hand smoke each year. Smoking kills 11,500 adult North Carolina smokers each year, and exposure to second-hand smoke kills at least 1,210 in our state annually. [continues 140 words]
Two-Strike Expulsion Is A Way Into Treatment, Attorney Says School officials are studying whether to add a third strike to the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools' drug policy. The district is considering changes in part because it ranks among the state's leaders in expulsions. The district had 3 percent of the state's enrollment but 19 percent - or 44 - of the state's expulsions in 2001-02, the most recent year that complete data is available. "It's just an issue," said Doug Punger, the school system's attorney. "We've had a large number of expulsions." [continues 455 words]
CHARLOTTE -- People who operate methamphetamine labs, especially in households with children, should get tougher punishment than state law now allows, justice officials say. N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and Van Shaw Jr., an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation in Charlotte, lobbied the N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission yesterday for tougher penalties for manufacturing meth, including longer prison sentences. They also sought a separate felony child-endangerment charge for making meth in the presence of minors. "The penalties are really not in line with the danger and the addictive effects of the drug," Shaw said Thursday before the meeting. [continues 347 words]
Suspension terms are changed for alcohol, drug-policy violations The Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education voted unanimously last night to amend the district's drug policy to allow students to remain in school after a second drug or alcohol offense. The policy previously called for students to be expelled after a second offense. Penalties for the first time a student is caught with drugs or alcohol will remain the same. The student is suspended for three to five days and can be suspended for the rest of the year. [continues 340 words]
When I first heard that Rush Limbaugh had gone deaf, I assumed that it was because of atrophy. Now it appears that the culprit could have been OxyContin. I certainly do not bear him any ill will and hope that he recovers from his addiction as well as he did from his deafness. I just wonder if he will turn himself in to authorities so they can send him up the river, since he is a white guy who got addicted to drugs. [continues 67 words]
Here Is The Step-By-Step Process At Florida Detox: Pre-admission: The day before they are detoxed, patients undergo a medical evaluation that includes blood work and an EKG. Their mental health also is evaluated, through testing and a consultation with a staff psychologist, for underlying problems, such as depression and attention deficit disorder, that could affect long-term recovery. The psychologist helps create a post-detox plan, which might include recommendations for counseling or a residential-treatment program. Patients stop taking their addictive drug, such as OxyContin or methadone, the following day. [continues 279 words]
It's Studying Problems Of Bullying, Drug Abuse Members of a task force dealing with bullying and substance abuse said last night that Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools should focus on using existing discipline plans rather than creating new ones. "It's almost, here we go again with something else," said Steve Flora, the principal of Easton Elementary School and a member of the task force. "Do we have something in place that we could just tweak?" The task force was formed to suggest discipline plans that could help schools improve problems that were identified on the districtwide survey on school climate. [continues 288 words]
BOONE - The Watauga County prosecutor who used a law intended to combat terrorism to fight the spread of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories in Northwest North Carolina will fight a judge's recent ruling against him. Judge James Baker of Watauga Superior Court ruled Friday that the process of "cooking" methamphetamine does not create a weapon of mass destruction - throwing out 15 charges against at least 10 people in the process. Jerry Wilson, Watauga's district attorney, filed an appeal yesterday. Since July. Wilson has charged a number of Watauga County residents under the North Carolina weapons-of-mass-destruction statute because meth "cooks" combine toxic and volatile chemicals to produce the illegal drug. [continues 346 words]
Possession Of As Many As 150 Rocks Classified As A Misdemeanor The Associated Press Shelby A North Carolina Court of Appeals ruling that simple possession of cocaine is a misdemeanor could affect thousands of cases across the state. The ruling last week means that someone could be arrested for having as many as 150 $20 rocks of cocaine and be charged with only a misdemeanor, said state and Cleveland County officials. It also applies to different drugs, including PCP and methamphetamine, said Robert Farb, a professor of public law and government at the Institute of Government. [continues 256 words]
Keep your fingers crossed for John Savage. Savage is starting life over at age 37. For the past 19 years, he's been in and out of prison, hooked on cocaine and alcohol off and on, and a member of society who took more than he gave. Now, as Journal reporter John Railey detailed in a front-page story Monday, he's staying at Samaritan Ministries, working at a job laying concrete and vowing to stay out of prison and off controlled substances. It's taken some perseverance. Savage was honest about his past and had some trouble landing a job before being hired by Ernest Anthony, who says, "I don't pay any attention to what he did if a man works." Savage earns $10 an hour. [continues 305 words]
Raleigh A state audit of a drug-treatment program begun by U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance, D-1st, found that it was riddled with conflicts of interest and spent money on activities that had nothing to do with its intended purpose. The audit, released yesterday by Ralph Campbell, the state auditor, recommended that the John A. Hyman Foundation reimburse the state the $338,925 that remained in its bank accounts as of last week. "Taxpayers expect, and rightfully expect, that these (nonprofit) agencies be held accountable for the tax funds they receive," Campbell said. [continues 351 words]
I was sorry to hear that Rush Limbaugh is addicted to prescription painkillers, but it is difficult not to feel some pleasure when a hypocrite gets exposed ("Limbaugh admits on radio he is addicted to painkillers,"Oct. 11). I've never understood why millions pay any attention to this strident windbag. He is apparently a man of great political intellect who dropped out of Southeast Missouri State University, a super-patriot who managed not to serve during Vietnam (like so many of his ilk) and a moral paragon who's been married three times. [continues 52 words]
Labs Dangerous Places, DEA Agent Says When the little boy's parents found him, he was face down in their laundry room, lying in the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamines. 'They rolled him over and peeled his face off,' said Tim Binkley of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Binkley showed a picture of the boy, his face still raw, as part of a presentation yesterday to make a point about the dangers of methamphetamine production. The chemicals are dangerous to anyone who comes near them, especially children. [continues 519 words]
Greensboro In September 2000, Darick Lynn Owens was arrested on felony drug charges after marijuana and ecstasy were found under the driver's seat of his car. The charges were dropped last year after one of his accusers, Deputy David Scott Woodall of the Davidson County Sheriff's Office, was himself charged with drug crimes as part of a federal investigation into cocaine, marijuana and steroid distribution in the area. During the fallout over Sheriff Gerald Hege's arrest last week, Owens filed a $100,000 civil lawsuit in federal court in Greensboro against Woodall and his former boss accusing Woodall of planting the evidence and Hege of failing to adequately train and supervise his employee. [continues 550 words]
DAs To Lighten Load As A Short-Term Fix North Carolina's district attorneys will send less evidence from misdemeanor marijuana and property-crime cases to the state's overburdened crime laboratory to help reduce the lab's backlog. Prosecutors said they hope that sending less evidence from lower-level cases to the State Bureau of Investigation lab in Raleigh will help the lab catch up. But the head of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys warned that the idea is a temporary way to help the lab in the short term. He said that the lab needs more money and employees to keep up with the demand to process forensic evidence. [continues 681 words]
Three years ago, Sheriff Gerald Hege allowed the news media to tag along as his deputies conducted traffic stops. The results of this informal study, Hege said at the time, supported his contention that he was not using racial profiling. But affidavits from Hege's deputies, filed in support of a petition to remove him from office, paint a different picture of the department, one that used race and ethnicity as reasons for stopping motorists. 'On several occasions Sheriff Hege told me to go out and stop 'every Mexican or black guy," Maj. Brad Glisson said in an affidavit. [continues 778 words]
Sheriff Is Suspended; DA Files Papers To Have Him Removed LEXINGTON - Sheriff Gerald Hege of Davidson County was charged with 15 felonies and suspended from office yesterday after a wide-ranging state and federal investigation into corruption and misconduct by the sheriff and his allies. Judge W. Erwin Spainhour issued an order for Hege's arrest about 10:15 a.m., after he opened 15 indictments that were sealed Sept. 2. Hege appeared in Davidson Superior Court around noon and was suspended as sheriff before posting a $15,000 bond and leaving the courthouse with his family. [continues 1707 words]
Critics Say Practice Threatens Civil Rights In the two years since law-enforcement agencies gained new powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes. The Justice Department said that it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers. [continues 700 words]
RALEIGH (AP) -- A foundation that U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance helped create will shut down its drug- and alcohol-treatment program after losing state financing earlier this year. Eddie Lawrence, who serves as director of the program for the John A. Hyman Foundation, said that the substance-abuse program would continue providing services to current clients through the end of the month and then close. The foundation has come under increasing criticism since January, when the N.C. Department of Correction withdrew funding because it failed to provide audited financial statements. It had received about $2million from the department since 1994. [continues 224 words]
N.C.'s AG Says He'll Ask For Laws, Funds To Fight Methamphetamine Labs Roy Cooper, North Carolina's attorney general, told residents gathered in Watauga County yesterday that he plans to ask the N.C. General Assembly for legislation and money to help curb the spread of clandestine methamphetamine labs across the state. 'The growing problem of these secret labs is quickly becoming an epidemic,' Cooper said at a community forum in Boone. 'The drug kingpins aren't in other countries. They are right in our own back yard.' [continues 496 words]
Most Students Said They Didn't Care If Others Used Two-thirds of seniors in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school system said they have seen someone at school with drugs or alcohol, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And 59 percent of the 2,418 seniors surveyed said that students didn't care if other students used or possessed drugs or alcohol at school, according to last year's systemwide survey. Last spring, school officials surveyed fifth-, eighth- and 12th-grade students and their parents about the school climate. A total of 8,004 students completed the survey. [continues 537 words]
As fast as the politicians and thumbsuckers are running away from blame for the Northeastern blackout this month, various politicians and experts are taking credit for news that crime continues to drop. But there is no one politician, interest group or even anti-crime strategy deserving of all of the applause. Instead, the drop in crime is the result of a great many factors. The U.S. Justice Department reported Sunday that during 2002, violent crimes and property crimes dropped to their lowest levels in the 30 years that records have been kept. There were approximately half as many crime victims in 2002 as there were in 1973, when these crime studies began. [continues 328 words]
Secretary Of State Wants To Know More About His Foundation LEXINGTON -- Weeks after the N.C. Secretary of State's office asked Sheriff Gerald Hege for financial information on his Blue Line Foundation, state officials say that Hege has yet to meet their request. Hege and his wife set up the foundation in 1999 to raise money for families of law-enforcement officers killed or injured in the line of duty. In a series of written and telephone exchanges over the past several weeks, state officials have repeatedly asked for copies of the foundation's financial records so that they can determine whether it requires a license to solicit charitable contributions. [continues 592 words]
As I read the letter to the editor from the 11-year-old on July 29 ('Save Our Neighborhood'), my heart was stirred. She expressed her sadness over lives lost because of drugs in her neighborhood. She wished the city would rebuild or demolish it - to save lives. I thought of our country. America has sent troops to Iraq for the same purpse, to demolish and rebuild. The yearning this time, however, is coming from the heart of an 11-year-old child in our own back yard. I believe this child speaks for many other children. [continues 125 words]
1,075 Marijuana Plants Are Destroyed In Wilkes Harvest season has arrived for one of Northwest North Carolina's major annual crops. But because the crop is marijuana, law-enforcement officers are trying to find the plants and destroy them before growers can bring the marijuana to market. On Tuesday, sheriff's deputies from Wilkes and Ashe counties, along with SBI agents, destroyed 1,075 plants that were found during a flyover by the N.C. Army National Guard. Marijuana has long been grown in Wilkes County and the rest of Northwest North Carolina, in part, because of the long growing season and abundance of sparsely populated areas where the crop can be easily hidden. [continues 471 words]
Wrong Guidelines Used, U.S. Appeals Panel Rules Douglas Westmoreland, a former Davidson County sheriff's deputy now serving prison time on drug charges, could have his 11-year sentence reduced. Westmoreland, 51, will return to federal court to be sentenced again because U.S. District Court officials used incorrect guidelines in setting his sentence, a three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a decision released yesterday. The new sentencing may or may not reduce the amount of time that Westmoreland will spend in prison, said Urs Gsteiger, his attorney. [continues 426 words]
A program that pays drug-addicted women to be sterilized or get long-term birth control is surely well-intentioned. However, the bottom line is that it is demeaning and condescending. It also unpleasantly evokes the state's old forced sterilization program, which the award-winning Journal series 'Against Their Will' described in detail. In that program, those who 'knew better' decided which women and girls were and were not fit to have children. The new program, which has recently moved to a Charlotte suburb, is named CRACK, although the name - which stands for Children Requiring A Caring Kommunity - is the least of what is unfortunate about it. [continues 308 words]
Davidson officer is the fifth charged in past 18 months A Davidson County sheriff's deputy was fired earlier this month after a King police officer arrested her on a felony drug charge - the fifth member of the Davidson County Sheriff's Office to face criminal charges in the past 18 months. According to police warrants, Maureen Cleary Williams tried to forge a prescription for a controlled substance June 27 at an Eckerd drug store in King. After an investigation, she was charged July 10 with one count of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, a felony. [continues 191 words]
Anti-Terrorism Statute May Fight Meth Labs Frustrated by drug laws that he thought were not tough enough on methamphetamine producers, prosecutor Jerry Wilson decided to examine the books. Wilson, the district attorney for Watauga County, and members of his staff started flipping through legal texts and precedents in the past few weeks until they found what they were looking for - a law with more teeth. Instead of a drug law, though, Wilson turned to the state's antiterrorism laws when prosecuting accused methamphetamine producers. The laws, specifically a statute passed in November 2001, detail the penalties for manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon. Wilson's office filed what are believed to be the first charges using that law last week. [continues 823 words]
DA Hopes Law Will End Spread Of Meth Labs BOONE-A prosecutor in Watauga County is using a law intended to combat terrorism to fight the spread of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories in Northwest North Carolina. Jerry Wilson, the district attorney for Watauga County, has charged Martin Dwayne Miller, 24, of Todd with two counts of manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon in connection with a methamphetamine arrest Friday. Miller also is charged with eight other drug-related offenses. 'This is a two-edged sword,' Wilson said. 'Not only is the drug methamphetamine in itself a threat to both society and those using it, but the toxic compounds and deadly gases created as side products are also real threats. I feel that, as a prosecutor, I have to address this. Something has to be done to protect society. [continues 556 words]
Confronted with a rising prison population and a reluctance to continue building costly prisons, state legislators are considering ways to relieve the space crunch. The chief - and most controversial - proposal would relax sentencing rules for habitual felons, repeat offenders who under the law can get lengthy prison terms for sometimes minor felonies. Proponents, including the N.C. Sentencing Commission, say that the state is clogging prisons with offenders whose punishments often outweigh their crimes. Habitual felons - those convicted of at least four felonies - make up about 11 percent of the prison population. From 2001 to 2002, 75 percent of those convicted under the law committed low-level felonies that include credit-card theft, forgery and possession of cocaine. [continues 560 words]
Group, Which Supports Drug Programs, Is Headed By U.S. Representative A nonprofit foundation that supports drug-treatment programs in Eastern North Carolina and is headed by U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance has never filed a required federal-tax form in its 18-year history, The Wilson Daily Times reported yesterday. The John A. Hyman Memorial Youth Foundation has never filed the Internal Revenue Service Form 990, the newspaper reported. The IRS requires the form each year from tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations with annual receipts of more than $25,000. [continues 490 words]
Problem Is Spreading Over Northwest N.C. Counties, Deputy Says JEFFERSON - The discovery of two clandestine methamphetamine labs in Ashe County on Thursday - the same number as found in the county in all of 2002 - - shows that they are spreading in Northwest North Carolina, authorities said. "It's getting to be a problem here," said Maj. Steve Houck, the chief deputy with the Ashe County Sheriff's Office. "I'm sure we've got several more that we don't know about." No arrests had been made yesterday, but warrants were being drawn up, Houck said. [continues 274 words]
