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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

Meth-making evolves, arrests set records

Cooking drug gets easier, detection gets harder

The way to make methamphetamine is evolving, and as it does, the methods law enforcement use to snare meth cooks have to evolve, too.

Meth labs are dangerous even before they produce the actual drug, because they combine volatile, toxic chemicals.

And now that meth cooks can pile all the ingredients into one container and shake it up, a meth lab is more portable, compact and easier to hide.

The container is closed, so it also keeps fumes down. Pungent chemical smell had been a sure-fire way to detect a meth lab.

“With the shake-and-bake method, you may never smell it in a neighborhood. It’s one of the ways they’re attempting to thwart law enforcement,” said Curtis Spiers, commander of the Jackson County Narcotics Task Force. “We’re still telling people to report strong, pungent smells. But there may be times when there’s a shake-and-bake lab, and you may not smell anything.”

It makes meth labs in densely populated neighborhoods possible.

Spotting labs gets harder

Last week, law enforcement raided a home in Ocean Springs on a tip that the owner’s son was cooking meth in a backyard apartment.

They found two meth labs and the ingredients to make more of the drug.

The shocker was the home was also a longtime day care for children.

Neighbors across the street said they noticed unusual traffic at odd hours at the house in recent months, but not the smell they would have expected with meth cooking.

Yet it was also a tip from neighbors that helped law enforcement get the search warrant needed to raid the property.

“We had reports of neighbors thinking there was a train derailment because the chemical smell was so strong,” Spiers said.

With shake-and-bake labs like those found on the day-care property, the smell may be fleeting, Spiers said.

That makes spotting them tricky.

“You can put one under the vent hood of a stove and the fumes will go out the roof of a house,” Spiers said.

They’re as small as a two-liter plastic bottle and self-contained, with a lid.

Spiers first saw one in 2004, right before a national drug enforcement conference in Nashville where the shake-and-bake method was a hot topic.

“But now it’s just about all you see,” Spiers said. “They’re seeing them all across the United States.

“It’s the catalyst that is driving this meth epidemic above what we’ve seen previously,” he said.

Arrest records