Pubdate: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN) Copyright: 2005 The Leader-Post Ltd. Contact: http://www.canada.com/regina/leaderpost/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/361 Author: Tim Switzer, Leader-Post Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada) VOLUNTEERS PREPARE TO DEAL WITH METH LABS If crystal meth labs are going to move into rural Saskatchewan, Bryan Redekop wants to be prepared. Redekop, the chief of the Herbert Volunteer Fire Department, was one of about 100 rural firefighters and other emergency workers to take in a training session on meth labs as part of the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters' Association's annual training symposium Saturday in White City. "You hear so much about it lately, you see documentaries on TV and it just seems like it's a growing thing out in the rural areas," he said. Though, he said, there was no meth problem at the present in his community, Redekop said there was no harm in being ready. "I really don't know ... it's hard to say (if it will become a problem)," he said. "But from what you hear about it, it's moving this way." Special Agent Steve Bauer of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), who led the session, couldn't agree more. "(Canada's) absence of laws, availability of precursors and rural space makes it more likely that you'll have a problem rather than less likely," he said. He said recognition is the biggest problem most rural emergency workers are facing since training isn't readily available outside major centres. "It's putting together a bunch of disparate facts or objects that you see and putting those all together in your head and saying, 'Wait a minute,'" he explained. "If all I do is get people to stop for just a second and say, 'There's something maybe going on here,' that alone will be advantageous to all of them." Gloria Prentice, an emergency medical responder in Beechy, said while it's often firefighters who get the call to go to such labs, she could potentially need to respond to someone who has inhaled the toxic fumes as well. "Realistically I have no idea what they look like or what they entail or anything about them. I know nothing about crystal meth other than it's there," she said. Rick Watson, a retired Regina police officer and now the president of the Saskatchewan chapter of the International Association of Arson Investigators, said many rural emergency workers are only now finding out that crystal meth labs are not just a big-city problem. And without the resources and training those in cities have access to, this sort of information is invaluable. "The smaller part-time guys, that's where the danger is," he said. "This guy's a butcher by day or the hardware store manager and all of a sudden he gets called into an abandoned farmhouse that has all this weird stuff in it. "The trend is for these meth labs to be in rural areas or obscure places," he continued. "People in the bigger centres have HAZMAT teams and professional fire departments have all the resources. But in the rural areas where these labs could be and probably will be ... the trend is to hide them away. "We've kind of made ourselves bit of a Mecca for these guys. We don't know very much about it, our laws are kind of slack compared to the States." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake