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September 6, 2008

Cullman County Sheriff’s Office to promote meth lab awareness

By Patrick McCreless

The Cullman County Sheriff’s Office will soon hold a series of meth lab awareness meetings because of the significant increase in local drug activity over the past year.

“We just want the community to be more aware about how devastating this drug (meth) can be and with that knowledge, hopefully they can communicate that to their children and provide positive reinforcement,” said Cullman Sheriff Tyler Roden.

The sheriff’s office will hold its first meth awareness meeting at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Cold Springs High School lunchroom. The meeting should last about an hour.

“If someone is not able to make it to this meeting, we do plan to have three or four meetings on the west side of the county and three or four on the east side in the weeks ahead,” Roden said.

Roden said the meetings would focus on the dangers of meth labs and would feature a powerpoint presentation on what the labs look like. Attendants will also learn during the meetings some of the signs and indicators of a meth lab in their communities and how the sheriff’s office responds to meth manufacturing.

“Since we’ve had an increase in meth seizures and arrests, we want to make the community more aware of meth labs and inform them more about what our officers, deputies and narcotics task force agents are seeing and dealing with,” Roden said.

Roden said so far this year, narcotics agents have shut down approximately 50 meth labs in the county, which is more than triple the number of labs they discovered a year and a half ago.

Roden said the main reason for the surge in meth production is the relatively new way in which the drug is manufactured.

“They have learned to streamline the meth-making process,” Roden said. “It’s referred to as the one-pot or shake and bake method. It’s easier and quicker.”

Roden said another reason for why meth labs have increased is law enforcement’s crackdown on drug trafficking into the county. He said prior to the latest surge, most of Cullman’s meth was brought in from other counties.

“Through the work of narcotics units and working with federal authorities, we have been able to dismantle some of those trafficking networks,” Roden said. “As a result, individuals who want meth are just trying to make it themselves.”

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