Third of four parts

Methamphetamine producers target rural, sparsely populated areas for two main reasons: the telltale odor of the production process and the availability of ingredients.

Most of the precursors for the production of methamphetamine are readily available at any number of stores. The most important, however, is ephedrine or pseudoephedrine (found in cold and allergy pills), without which meth cannot be made.

The production process itself is not that difficult if all the ingredients are available, said "Jack," who has been arrested several times for manufacturing meth and is currently serving time. But because such volatile chemicals and substances are used, he said, making meth is extremely dangerous.

Jack, a 39-year-old Warsaw man who made meth for his own use, said his meth recipe called for as many as 25 boxes of cold pills, depending on the number of pills in each box and the amount of ephedrine in each pill.

Because ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is the main ingredient in meth, nearly all retailers in the Warsaw area limit the number of boxes of cold and allergy pills that can be bought at one time. In addition, CVS, Wal-Mart, Kmart and Owen's also keep some cold and allergy pills behind the counter or in the pharmacy to deter theft.

To get around this precaution, Jack and his friends would casually buy a box or two at a time and save them up until they made the next batch of meth, he said.

Besides the cold pills, meth cooks use the lithium strips out of batteries.

"You have to peel the batteries to get the strip out, it's real dangerous, that's when you see people blowing up," Jack said.

The cold pills and lithium strips are combined with anhydrous ammonia and stirred until the mixture forms a sticky, cake-like dough. The cake is "cooked" by placing it in ether (obtained from cans of starting fluid). It's then stirred over a heat source.

The resulting liquid is then filtered and exposed to the fumes, or smoke, created by pouring drain cleaner over salt; filtered again and left to dry. The process takes two to three hours.

Jack said one batch would last him up to two months and would cost approximately $100 to make.

Meth lab explosions, Jack said, often occur because cooks don't take the time to be safe or careful, or because they just don't know or care about safety. Many meth ingredients - anhydrous ammonia, ether - are flammable, and lithium batteries often can burst into flame when they're cut.

"When you've got an open flame around flammable products like anhydrous ammonia and ether, poof, you got an explosion," Jack said.

Stealing the anhydrous also is dangerous, he said.

"It's so dangerous that if you breathe it, it will crystallize your lungs and you might not ever get another breath. It's very, very lethal. It's nasty stuff. ... Also, if it gets on your skin, it'll burn you," he said.

Meth labs are conspicuous in urban areas because of the strong telltale odor of anhydrous ammonia and ether. So meth users are getting more creative with their meth labs.

"Now they're adapting. We got pretty good at getting the labs, so now they're getting mobile labs," said Kosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine. Mobile labs can be in vans, campers, even the trunks of cars.

And the danger of meth lab explosions is not only to the meth cooks or any family members that may be in or near the area where the meth is being cooked. Emergency workers also must know what they're getting into and must take special precautions.

"They may run into something thinking it's a regular grease fire or house fire, but if they see ether cans laying around, then they know 'we've got a lab here,' and now they've gotta back out and contain this thing," said Detective Sgt. Mike Speigle of the Drug Task Force. "Plus if they've got anhydrous tanks in there and heat gets to them and they blow, I've seen how a tank goes when it blows and it's not pretty."

Jack, who knows a man who overheated anhydrous and nearly died when it blew up in his house, regrets his involvement with the drug, which cost him his job and his house, and almost his family.

"Making it was the worst mistake of my life," he said of meth, "and I can't correct it, I can't change it, I have to live with it. ... It's been the worst battle of my life. ... I'm done. You won't even get me near it. I don't even want to see it."

Thursday: The law enforcement and legal aspects of meth use and manufacture. [[In-content Ad]]