ADDITIVE WOULD REVEAL METH USE WITH PINK COLOR

Methamphetamine makers soon could be seeing pink if suppliers of the crop fertilizer anhydrous ammonia - often stolen to make meth - decide to use a new additive called GloTell.

Those who snort methamphetamine that was cooked with anhydrous ammonia containing GloTell will see their noses turn fluorescent pink.  Those who inject the drug will see the same effect on the skin around the injection spot.

There is still research to be done on the new product and how its use could affect the approximate $400-per-ton cost of anhydrous ammonia, said Eldred Black, area supervisor for Miles Enterprises, a company that operates 22 stores statewide, including Rich Pond Crop Service in Bowling Green.

"I'm not sure how this additive is going to be added," Black said.  "I'm not sure how this is going to be handled on a local level.  We are in the exploring stages of this product, as far as cost.  It's brand new and we really don't have all the information."

Black said anhydrous ammonia distributors are hardest hit, not by loss of the actual chemical, but by the cleanup and repair work required after thieves raid the property.

"It's not always the loss of product as much as it is the aggravation, where they cut hoses or cut fences or whatever they do," he said, adding that his company would definitely use GloTell if it proved to be the most cost-effective option.

And that's exactly what drug enforcement officers want to hear.

"We would certainly encourage it," said Tommy Loving, director of the Bowling Green-Warren County Drug Task Force.  "In the states they are using it, we've heard it's having a real positive effect."

Loving said use of GloTell could discourage the use of anhydrous ammonia in the methamphetamine manufacturing process, which could help ease the overall meth problem.

Meth recipes that do not call for anhydrous ammonia are generally more difficult to make, he said.

"When you are able to make it more difficult, then maybe the popularity of that drug decreases and the price of the drug increases," he said.

In the two years it took to develop GloTell, researchers at the University of Southern Illinois-Carbondale found it did much more than just stain thieves pink.

The visible stain, even if washed off, was still detectable by ultraviolet light 24 to 72 hours later.  As an extra benefit, the additive helped farmers detect any tank leaks, said Truitt Clements, spokesman for Illinois-based GloTell Distributors LLC.

Best of all, the treated anhydrous ammonia rendered any meth it was used to make extremely difficult to dry and turned it an unbleachable pink, he said.

"We know the end-product is not pretty at all," Clements said.

During product testing, GloTell was added to anhydrous ammonia tanks at farms that had been having problems with meth thefts in Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, Clements said.  Within a week, the thefts stopped.

Jim Devasher, director of Southcentral Kentucky Drug Task Force in Russellville, said his two-month-old agency has already cracked 22 meth cases.

"Some of that would be having the precursor.  Some of that would be possession of anhydrous ammonia," he said.  "It's a problem everywhere.  We're right now trying to do a study to figure what would be the best way to lock anhydrous ammonia tanks or provide some type of security at the farm co-ops, as well as some of the nurse tanks that go out to the farmers."

Devasher said his agency is looking to Iowa as an example, a state that has had a large problem with anhydrous ammonia theft.

The Southcentral Kentucky Drug Task Force is spearheading an effort to craft a proposal for presentation to local co-ops and fiscal courts in Butler, Logan and Simpson counties, the area patrolled by the agency.

"We're looking at what will be the most cost-effective, the most practical and what will work," he said.  "I think meth is the biggest problem we face in all three counties.  Addressing the theft of anhydrous ammonia is the biggest step toward the prevention of the manufacture of it."

- - The Associated Press contributed information to this article.