Pubdate: Fri, 15 Mar 2002
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2002, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: Sarah Huntley

'SPEED' TRAP

Colorado busting a meth lab a day, but hasn't seen peak in number of 
clandestine 'cookeries'

Colorado cops raid meth labs at a rate of more than one a day.

Two women are dead after sucking in smoke when an explosion blasted through 
a basement cookery. Dozens of drug cookers are suffering serious burns.

And the toll on children who grow up breathing toxic fumes, soaking in a 
deadly lifestyle, is yet to be known.

By all accounts, the state is reeling from a "speed" manufacturing madness, 
and law enforcement officials say there's no cure in sight.

"This is not anything we've ever had to deal with before," said Sgt. Jim 
Gerhardt of the North Metro Task Force. "(But) we haven't seen even the 
climax here in Colorado. That's what the history of other states tell us."

 From 1999 to 2001, the number of methamphetamine lab busts in Colorado 
tripled, exceeding 450 last year.

Adams County has the most busts; investigators with the North Metro Task 
Force took down 73 clandestine labs in 2001 and have discovered 35 so far 
this year.

The task force's commander, Lt. Lori Moriarty, remembers the start of the 
scourge. It was 1999, when two busts a month seemed like a strain.

"Right now if we had two labs a month, we'd be ecstatic," she said.

The increase has forced law enforcement agencies across the Front Range to 
devise new strategies to confront the drug's unique challenges.

Unlike many other illegal drugs, methamphetamine swept across the country 
from west to east, plaguing California and Washington long before it showed 
up in Colorado.

What's most significant is how -- and where -- the stimulant is made. 
Thanks to easily obtained ingredients, such as the pseudoephedrine in many 
cold medicines, and the dissemination of information over the Internet, the 
drug can be brewed in users' homes.

But not without significant risk. The process involves a potentially lethal 
concoction of highly volatile chemicals, some odorless and some not, that 
permeates carpets and walls. More sophisticated manufacturers have rigged 
the labs to drain the hazardous waste into their neighborhood sewer system. 
Others capture the fumes in garbage bags that wind up at the county landfill.

Children often are living in the homes where meth labs are operating, 
exposing them to deadly vapors and searing chemicals. Fires are frequent.

The state logged its first fatalities in January, when Pamela English and 
Tammy Campbell, both 33-year-old meth addicts, were trapped in a crawl 
space in a Denver home.

Moriarty believes speed shops, whether in houses, motels, vehicles or 
campsites, pose "the biggest safety issue for our community today."

Moriarty's crew began focusing on meth labs in the early spring of 2001, 
after two investigators returned from training at Quantico with disturbing 
news: The task force's previous approach to clandestine labs was woefully 
inadequate.

"We went head-first," Moriarty said. "We said, what is it going to take to 
do this right? We weren't going to say it was too hard."'

The fact that Adams County has uncovered more labs does not mean the 
problem is more prevalent in the northern suburbs.

"There are no demographic issues with this drug. It's everywhere," Moriarty 
said. "We're just at a different stage of recognition."

North Metro made several decisions that Moriarty and Gerhardt believe put 
their agencies on track for identifying more labs.

The task force decided that every investigator and supervisor needed to 
complete rigorous training in detecting clandestine laboratories.

Then they spread the word. Since May, North Metro investigators have 
trained more than 1,000 officers on how to recognize the clues of meth 
manufacturing.

Officers discover the majority of labs, often when responding to non- drug 
calls, Gerhardt said. The training helps them rapidly recognize a lab when 
they're on a call -- which investigators say could save their lives.

After nearly every class, officers come out saying, "Oh my God, do you know 
how many labs I've been in and didn't even know it?" Moriarty said.

Sgt. Mark Olin, who heads the Denver Police Department's crime analysis 
unit, said his agency needs equipment and more manpower dedicated to 
finding clandestine labs.

"North Metro has a response vehicle. Other task forces have response 
vehicles. I've got the trunk of my car," he said. "We are going to become 
so saturated with caseloads and response calls, we aren't going to have 
enough trained people . . . Burnout is right down the street."

The task force approach is considered key to law enforcement success.

"It holds great benefits because it opens a lot of doors that individual 
agencies don't have available to them," said Lt. Al Wilson, who commands 
the West Metro Task Force in Jefferson County.

Investigators said they hope agencies will come together to address the 
problem in statewide cooperation.

"It's going to take a team effort to make sure the state of Colorado is a 
safe environment and not a hazardous dump site," Moriarty said. "We can't 
bury our heads in the sand."
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