N.C.  ARGUES OVER COST OF FIGHTING METH

Law enforcers press for more manpower, funds

RALEIGH - Attorney General Roy Cooper believes North Carolina needs 42 new law enforcement agents and chemists and $16 million over the next year to combat the statewide spread of methamphetamine labs.

His fellow Democrat Gov.  Mike Easley believes the state can make it with a third of the workers and a 10th of the money.

The different numbers highlight a dispute over what tools state investigators and local sheriffs need to stop the drug's spread from the mountains to the Piedmont -- or at least over how much lawmakers can afford to put into the fight.

Rural law officers say they need as much money and help as the state can muster.

To make the drug, which gives users a prolonged, manic high, meth cooks are stealing cold medicine from dollar stores.  They produce powder or crystals by mixing flammable chemicals such as lighter fluid and kerosene and red phosphorus from the striker plates of matchbooks.  Then they dump their chemicals outdoors, polluting waterways and igniting fires in landfills, apartments and hotels.

"I understand the governor has a budget process, but the SBI needs more agents; they need more pay," said Mark Shook, the Republican sheriff of Watauga County, 100 miles northwest of Charlotte.

"We've got to have it because they're the ones who are on the front lines, taking these labs down," he said.  "Without the SBI's help, we're just spinning our wheels."

Lawmakers say they are still learning about the complex challenges the drug poses, and it's an open question whether they will get a handle on the problems and pass laws to fix them before the legislature's two-month session ends.

Growing problem

Cooper helped put the meth problem on the state's agenda early this year by highlighting how much the problem has grown.In 1999 N.C.  investigators broke up nine meth labs.  In 2003 they broke up 177.  Earlier this year they were busting a lab a day.  As of Friday, the State Bureau of Investigation had closed 120 this year.

Each lab puts a strain on sheriffs' deputies, who usually can't take the labs apart themselves.  SBI agents and chemists must come in, wearing protective suits.  The cleanups can cost up to $30,000, and the federal government helps pay for them only if specially trained officers, such as the SBI agents, secure the labs.

"We do what we can to secure it and then we wait," said Capt.  Jim Farnsworth of the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office in Asheville.  "And sometimes, we wait and wait."

The waiting helped burn through overtime budgets last year in Watauga and next-door Ashe County.  Watauga Sheriff Shook said he had to ask county commissioners for $30,000 in additional overtime money so he wouldn't have to send his narcotics deputies home for months of compensatory time.

The sheriffs face another challenge: The ingredients for the drug are easy to get and cheap.  And the penalty for making meth is the same as the penalty for possessing a marijuana plant.  So cooks can post bond, return to their homes and start making the drug again.

List of proposals

Cooper, who like Easley is up for re-election, has taken a list of proposals straight to lawmakers.  He has asked for $4.2 million a year to hire 42 deputies and chemists and $8.9 million to expand the SBI crime laboratory in Raleigh.  He also wants about $3 million a year to expand a crime lab in Asheville and to recruit and retain officers.

The attorney general also wants convicted meth manufacturers to serve at least three years in prison.  Right now, they can get probation.

Easley, a former attorney general, also supports harsher sentences, but not all the money.  The governor has already signed off on plans to open three new prisons in the last year and public safety programs in general have suffered cuts during the past three years while the state's economy has struggled.

The budget Easley proposed last week included $1.2 million to hire 14 agents to train social workers to deal with children whose parents are charged with making meth.  The Governor's Crime Commission also announced a $502,166 grant last month to buy two additional mobile response vehicles.  There was no money in Easley's budget for expanding the Raleigh or Asheville labs.

"To say we don't support it wouldn't be correct," said Easley spokeswoman Cari Boyce.  "With the ( budget ) availability we had, we put all the money into the positions."

Cooper described the governor's proposal as a good first step, but is still pushing for his full plan.

House and Senate lawmakers said they would likely approve harsher sentences and come up with some money for agents, but not as much as Cooper wants.

Rep.  Joe Kiser, R-Lincoln, a former sheriff and current chairman of a budget committee that oversees public safety spending, points out that since the crime labs haven't been expanded yet, there's probably not enough space to house 42 new agents anyway.  Kiser believes the number of new agents will be closer to Easley's proposal than Cooper's.

But lawmakers from mountain counties that have the most meth problems said they still want more information.

"People do not yet realize what a problem it is in their communities," said Sen.  Walter Dalton, D-Rutherford.  "For some of these things, you can't stand by and wait another year."