What is your official title/position?
I am a detective with the Farmington Police Department.

How long have you been in this position?
I've been in this position for just a little over eleven years, and with the police department for
about twelve.

How involved are you in meth prevention?
The actual prevention part as a police officer is more indeturance than prevention. I go out and talk
with kids. So I guess in that role I do some prevention efforts. Outside the station, I work with an
organization that works with drug prevention. That certainly incorporates methamphetamine, and
that's Project Sunshine, which is a St. Francis County organization. In that capacity I do work in the
prevention mold. As a police officer I don't get a lot of time to do the prevention programs.

What is St. Francois County doing to prevent methamphetamine use?
We have the active participation of our legislators, our leaders, or our government locally and the
state at a federal level that govern this area that are working to alleviate the methamphetamine as
a problem here On the prevention side, there is a lot more that can be done on a county and city
level that we're not doing. The D.A.R.E. program exists in schools, and certainly addresses
methamphetamine as it does all other illegal drugs, but there should be more prevention programs.

How many busts/raids have you had this year?
This year I have been working indirectly in that capacity in St. Francois County. We are in a
taskforce, the Mineral Area Task Force, which is composed of members of the highway patrol, and
also task force officers who are employed directly by the Mineral Area Drug Task Force. They are
our primary enforcers now in this county. Personally, I've been in three or four labs this year. There
have been many more in Farmington city. I don't have the exact number, but I would say ten to
twelve in the city limits. This year I've been three or four of those this year, but primarily the task
force now does the primary busts and the clean up.

What are some unusual things you have found in meth labs?
I think that meth labs have been around for a while. Meth is manufactured inside a laboratory or in
somebody's home, car, or hotel room. That in itself is unusual that the ways that they are able to
use everyday materials everyday. Equipment things like Pyrex, dishes, coffee pots, and tubing you
would see in a fish aquarium. It's unusual to see that stuff combined in such a way that when you
mix all these chemicals together, and they yield methamphetamine.

One of the effects of methamphetamine is paranoia that takes over the users of meth. Often times
you'll see things that are a result of that, such as cameras. Cameras that they have up on their
houses are more elaborate that you would see on a business or a bank, because they think they will
get caught. They try to conceal the meth production; they may have an elaborate exhaust system
that will hide the smells. Meth labs stink, for lack of a better way to describe it. They smell,
especially in a town or city where building or apartments can't conceal the smell or smoke.

Have you ever been hurt or in danger at a meth lab?
I haven't been hurt directly, although when we first started seeing them in this area, we didn't
have much in affective equipment. We were constantly being exposed to chemicals that were bad.
They could cause cancer or other diseases that we were exposed to without equipment. I don't
know if there are others who have been exposed more than me, which may know the long term
effects that may happen to us. In the last five years we've gotten equipment to protect us. We've
gotten protective masks, like fireman wear when they go into a fire, that will keep us from getting
bad chemicals. They will protect us, but the answer to the question of "if I've ever been exposed
to danger," that is the danger of how evolved the chemicals can get. Chemicals being mixed
together in a non-laboratory setting, many of these are flammable or explosive. They can cause
breathing problems. I haven't been hospitalized but several of my fellow officers have, because of
the exposure to some of these chemicals.

How many children have you rescued?
I myself probably have saved forty or fifty kids from meth homes in the last ten years. As a direct
result, collectively. Children are in a lot of meth labs, but that number is a big problem. Often
times, cases of meth labs are judicated at a court level. The judges are harsher in terms of the
child endangerment issues then what they are the actual production. That is a big area of concern.

How many people have you seen go through rehab successfully?
I would like to tell you a lot. It's hard for me to actually gauge that, because I don't have the ability
to track them. Once they enter into the treatment center, and once they are out, it's difficult for
me to say if they are successful or not. I would tell you that I have met people that have
successfully completed rehabilitation, and I would say it would be a handful. Now, you have to
understand that the way treatment centers are set up, if someone gets caught or arrested, and they
are put on probation, most times it is mandated by the court that they are put in rehabilitation.
However, the process to get into especially in patient treatment can take sometimes up to three or
four months after they are sentenced, and are forced into rehab. There is a gap often times
between the time they are supposed to go, and the time they actually do if someone voluntarily
goes into rehab. Of course it's voluntary, they don't have to stay there. All too often they don't
make it successfully through the program.

We have a program that is going to start in St. Francis county in a couple of days actually, called
the 24th Judicial Circuit Drug Court which will address folks that get arrested for any drug certainly
meth will be included with that. Where they enter into the court they are forced into rehab they
have to go maybe not in patient but intensive out patient counseling and then they are also going to
be forced to be frequently tested for any drug or alcohol they were caught with. They are not
allowed to use drugs, or else they will receive five tests per week, and they will be tracked a lot,
now that the program is voluntary. Now you have the option to face the danger of going into
prison, or facing the drug court and most likely as a carrot at the end of a stick. If you make it
through, not only will you be drug free, most likely your charges are dropped against you. So we're
hopeful that's going to help us see a lot more people will be drug free.

How long does it take to decontaminate a meth lab?
That's a good question. My role is the material operator. My job is to remove the chemicals from a
meth lab. Much of that will be collected and sent to a crime lab, but the rest will be sent to a
bunker that is the closest. One is in Jackson, and one in Hillsboro. So what we do is we take the
waste that we can't store, and we have training to transport this stuff. It takes a few hours at least
to get rid of it. The responsibility of the owner, for instance, if it's at a hotel room, they have to
come in, and actually do further decontamination which can take hours and hours. Unfortunately,
some of this stuff you may not be able to completely get rid of unless you rip the carpet and walls
out. I've heard of that, because the meth level was so high they had to rebuild their house. I don't
do that, that's what we depend on people to do for us, but it takes a long time.

How quickly can meth be produced?
Anywhere from an hour to 13 hours, depending on how much. In Missouri we used to see what
would be minor meth labs. In other words they are producing an ounce, it would have a street
value of 1,500 bucks. It wouldn't seem like a lot of meth, but compared to others it's a big amount,
because of some of the laws that restrict to sell the ingredients. What we are seeing are fewer
labs, but they are bigger. Now some of the bigger labs, because they are using more quantity, it
takes longer for them to make a product, instead from when they were making an ounce.

How many deaths have you seen from meth? How many have there been in our county?
For meth, I know a couple from an overdose. For production, we've had county wide, maybe three
or four in the last ten years. We've had several injured and several people that weren't doing meth,
but they might go to the hospital saying they burned it on a muffler, or on a lawnmower, but in fact
it was from meth. The deaths are kind of hard from to gauge: how many people have died from
cancer, because they were in a meth lab and exposed to chemicals. It's difficult to know that.

Has the new meth law been effective, in your opinion?
In terms of reduction, the numbers speak for themselves. The meth labs state-wide are down. The
law we saw a decrease state-wide, but in our area we saw ours go up a little bit. Which is weird in
a way, but this year we've seen our number going down again. So again, the actual amount has
decreased, but now we are seeing bigger and more dangerous labs.

Are there many rehab/recovery clinics in our county?
No, there is South East Missouri (S.E.M.O.) community treatment center, which serves this county
as well as others. They have a facility called the Aquinas Treatment Center. They have outpatient
treatment. There is an adolescent treatment center called Pathways, which is a national
organization. In this area they help adolescents, which are outpatient. There's going to be one in
Lebanon, so now we only have the ones north of us in Comptree. Comptree is not for kids, and
there are some in St. Louis. Highland shut down the division of youth services; they are just for a
parent. That is something that needs to be addressed, the biggest issue that I see if a child and an
adult are put in the system, if they are not eligible for Medicaid, even if they have insurance. My
experience is the insurance company doesn't pay for a lot of days of mental health counseling. So
you have a segment that has to make some tough choices. This needs to be addressed.

What is the local hotline?
You can call 1-800-bad-weed. It was set up for drugs, but now it can be used for meth. You can also
use the St. Francois County Sheriff's Department. They have a special hotline there, but I'm not sure
what the number is. (573-756-3252) Tell them that you have a tip for a meth lab, and they'll direct
you. You can also call the Farmington Police Department; they know where you should call, so you
can leave a message for them.

How can we help?
I think as a group of students you can help. You can help by being good citizens that choose not to
do drugs, and then be good peers to your fellow students. Especially when you get older, and even
though you're not immune to it now, there is still pressure here as well. Where you go after here,
you know the peer pressure is immense on that level. You can be a good citizen leader. There are a
countless number of agencies that help prevent drug abuse on another level. You can be diligent.
You can learn about what the signs are. You can recognize people that might be on it. That's when
you have to step up and tell somebody. It may be a counselor, a guardian, parent, or a principal. I
know when people see this; they don't want to be labeled as a rat, so they don't tell people. Now,
we see a lot of people who are suffering over it. Also reporting things you see that are suspicious,
and stay informed and keep up the good work!