METH HIT EARLY IN WOOD

Police Describe Effort To Fight Drug Labs

When methamphetamine hit West Virginia about six years ago, the first place it took hold was Wood County.  At the height of the problem, police there took down 57 labs in one year.

Meth, a drug made by isolating the active ingredient in pseudoephedrine through a series of volatile chemical procedures, had been crossing the nation since the 1960s.  But when people started cooking "crank" in the Parkersburg area, it was seen as a totally new phenomenon.

"We were completely blindsided by it," Sgt.  S.A.  Hull of the Parkersburg State Police detachment said.  "We were sort of in the situation that Kanawha and Putnam counties are in now.  At least they know what they're looking for.  When we first saw it, we didn't even know what it was."

Capt.  Rick Woodyard, who has worked as a police officer in Wood County for years and is a ranking member of the Parkersburg Violent Crime & Narcotics Task Force, said they busted their first lab in 1998.

By 2002, they sometimes were busting three a week in cars and homes.

When lab after lab kept springing up and police learned a new, easily made drug had hit the streets, they contacted the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration in Charleston.

After getting some federal guidance, police began busting more labs because officers had been trained on what to look for.  Before they knew what they were dealing with, Woodyard said a road patrol officer might stop someone or respond to a 911 call, and the chemicals used to make the drug would be in plain view, but no arrests would be made.

As a result of the increased emphasis on meth, Hull, who also works on the task force, said they traced the problem to a group of meth cooks who moved to Wood County from California.  Police eventually arrested members of the group, but before they were able to get them in custody, they managed to pass on their technique.

"We caught them, but they taught a couple of people, who taught a couple of people, who taught a couple of people," Hull said.  "It just snowballed from there."

That snowball effect took hold of the region, and in 2002, police busted 57 labs.

Today, the problem has been substantially reduced.  In 2003, 20 labs were taken down.  Through the first four months of 2004, six labs have been found.

Woodyard said the area covered by his officers -- which includes Jackson, Pleasants, Richie, Roane, Wirt and Wood counties -- is one of the few areas of the country to beat back meth once it established a foothold.

He credited several initiatives for helping combat the problem, namely a vigilant law enforcement community, but the problem decreased dramatically after the officers learned much of the meth-making supplies were coming from one place.

In the Kanawha Valley, police think most of the meth is being produced is done by people who buy their materials at department stores, hardware stores and pharmacies.

A joint investigation involving the drug unit, State Police and DEA revealed that a lab in Columbus, Ohio, supplied most of the cooks in the Wood County area with their materials.