STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ADDRESSES METH LABS AT CONFERENCE

By Jon Mayhew
Publisher

CHARLOTTE – North Carolina’s attorney general Roy Cooper will address a state conference in Charlotte on meth amphetamine labs. Law enforcement officials across many levels throughout the state will attend the Clan Lab Investigator’s Association (CLIA) conference 10 a.m. Monday in Charlotte.

The conference will take place at the Hilton Charlotte City Center, located at 222 East Third Street in Charlotte.

Cooper will speak to clan lab investigators, narcotics agents, and police officers from across the country about North Carolina's efforts to combat the production, sale and use of methamphetamine.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, a part of Cooper's NC Department of Justice, responds to all meth labs found in the state.

In the last several months, at least five meth amphetamine labs have been uncovered in Lincoln County, mostly in the western part of the county. Two were even discovered in one day in west Lincoln. The interagency drug task force busted one lab on a tip, while a Lincoln County Sheriff’s deputy discovered another on Underwood Lane while serving eviction papers.

To fight the meth epidemic that moved into North Carolina from other states, Cooper won laws to make sure meth cooks serve time behind bars and to cut criminals' access to the key ingredient needed to make the drug.

Statewide, meth lab busts are down more than 40 percent. The SBI has busted 129 meth labs through July of this years compared to 231 labs from January through July in 2005, the year before the law limiting access to the key meth ingredient took effect.

Cooper is also working to fight meth addition. He partnered with law enforcement and drug addiction experts including the Partnership for a Drug Free North Carolina to develop a video and resource guide to educate people about the dangers of meth.

The video, available at www.ncdoj.gov uses interviews with two North Carolina meth addicts and treatment professionals to show the horrors of being hooked on the drug and the challenges of breaking meth addiction.

In Lincoln County, if anyone has a tip on a meth lab or suspects someone is using meth, they can call Crimestoppers of Lincolnton/Lincoln County Inc. at 704-736-8909. Crimestoppers may pay up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest on any crime.