Pubdate: Sun, 02 Nov 2003
Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003 The London Free Press a division of Sun Media Corporation.
Contact:  http://www.lfpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243
Author: Jennifer O'Brien

THAMES CENTRE SPEED BUST REGION'S BIGGEST IN SIX YEARS

Highly-Addictive Methamphetamines Are Making A Dangerous Resurgence, Police 
Say.

A highly addictive drug popular in the 1970s is making a dangerous comeback 
in the area, police are warning after the biggest speed seizure in more 
than six years. Provincial police charged two men and were seek a third 
yesterday, after finding two kilograms of methamphetamines in a makeshift 
laboratory on a Thames Centre farm.

The drugs would be worth about $80,000 on the street, said Det. Sgt. Brad 
Durfy outside the farm on Heritage Road, northwest of London.

"This is huge, it's the biggest seizure of methamphetamines from Lake Erie 
to Owen Sound in six years I've been doing this," said Durfy, who's with 
the drug enforcement unit. "It is definitely making a resurgence."

Several Middlesex OPP officers, along with members of OPP's drug unit, 
clandestine lab and identification teams, Thorndale firefighters and Health 
Canada chemists -- all wearing protective gear -- probed and dismantled the 
lab yesterday.

Investigators took precautions and paramedics were on scene because of the 
volatile chemicals in the shed, about 40 metres from a home on the farm.

Methamphetamine is made using a highly explosive mix of chemicals available 
in hardware stores, such as sulphuric acid, lithium and anhydrous ammonia, 
police said.

Police were called to the farm about 5 p.m. Friday to check a suspicious 
brown van spotted by a neighbour.

They arrived to find one man lying in the van and two others near the 
storage shed, said Durfy. They all fled.

Officers arrested one man running through a cornfield and another near the 
shed, where they found pails of chemicals used to make speed. The third man 
was still at large last night.

It was the 10th methamphetamine lab busted by regional OPP this year, said 
Durfy. Nine of them were in Perth county.

London police warned of a speed comeback this year, saying it would be the 
"drug of the new millennium."

"We are seeing it more and more in other capacities," said Durfy yesterday. 
"People are using it more and more."

The drug is extremely addictive and can be smoked in a pipe, injected or 
taken as a pill or capsule.

It can be made using simple devices: pails, hoses and propane and water tanks.

Manufacturers often choose rural areas for labs because of a toxic smell 
released when the drug is produced, said Durfy.

"(The smell) is easier to conceal here than downtown on Dundas Street," he 
said.

Police were questioning tenants in the yellow brick home on the property to 
see what they knew about the lab.

Neighbours said a family with children and two dogs live there.

"I had no idea about this," said a neighbour across the street. "I still 
don't know what's going on," said the woman, who did not want to be 
identified. "But I've never smelled any chemicals."

Police charged two Stratford men, John Saucier, 45, and Wayne Jantzi, 42, 
with production of methamphetamine and possession for the purpose of 
trafficking. 
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MAP posted-by: Perry Stripling