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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (March 26, 2003)
Med center Students state opinions project goal on the subject of war Illinois Valley High of pipelines DETECTIVE MIKE VORVERG Know a ‘clan lab’ when you see it JOINT detectives share knowledge of meth and meth lab detection By SAM NEWTON Staff Writer Mix two cups of cold medicine, 1 cup of isopropyl alcohol, stir in some iodine, let sit, then apply heat. Include a few more steps, ingest, snort, inject or inhale -- and ruin your life. During a Clandestine Lab Awareness Workshop on Wednesday, March 19 at the county building in Downtown Cave Junction, Josephine In- teragency Narcotics Team (JOINT) Detectives Mike Vorverg and Dave Raymond of the Josephine County Sher- iff’s Office, along with Pete Jenista of the Grants Pass Dept. of Public Safety, JOINT said that manufacturing methamphetamine (meth) is just about that easy. “It seems pretty compli- cated, but when you’re fol- lowing step-by-step instruc- tions that you can get off the Internet it’s pretty easy,” said Vorverg. “The number-one method of meth manufacture in this area is what we call “Red P,” or red phosphorus (from match box striker plates) and iodine,” Vorverg said. “If a manufacturer really got on it, he or she could make a batch of meth in approxi- mately one day,” he said. Meth or “poor man’s co- caine,” as some refer to it, is a central nervous system stimu- lant and is the most-abused controlled substance of epi- demic proportion in the United States, with Josephine County being third in the state for meth lab seizures in 2001 with 63. Consumption of meth -- whether by snorting, injecting, ingesting or smoking -- sends the brain a feeling of pleasure, but as the drug is abused the pleasurable feeling is lost. The abuser suffers the same addic- tion cycle as crack cocaine users. The biggest difference is that while crack binges sel- dom last more than 72 hours, meth binges can last up to two weeks. Meth increases the heart rate and blood pressure; and when the abuser comes down off the “high” it is a signifi- cant down -- causing nervous- ness and depression. “Behavioral patterns of an abuser include irritability, ag- gression, h yperactivit y, twitchy movements, severe weight loss, dental problems, teeth grinding and brittle bones,” said Vorverg. Meth is easy and cheap to make; the labs are easy to hide; and selling meth can be quite profitable. A clandestine laboratory, or “clan lab,” can be hidden in something as small as a Tup- perware bucket, the trunk of a car, or a garage. “Most labs are relatively small, or ‘mom and pop labs,’ according to Vorverg. Some common meth lab location indicators are large amounts of cold tablet con- tainers that list Ephedrine or Pseudoephedrine as an ingre- dient; match boxes (such as Diamond Strike Anywhere) with the striker plates re- moved; jars containing clear liquid with a white-colored (Continued on page 8) Cave Junction City Coun- cil members dealt with a smorgasbord of situations dur- ing their 90-minute meeting in city hall on Monday night, March 24. Topics included a circus, alcohol license, swimming pool funding, a $280,000 re- quest for an infrastructure grant, skateboard park expan- sion, and park concerts. Councilman Rita Dyer said that a meeting for those interested in keeping Illinois Valley Swimming Pool open this summer can attend a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Wednes- day, March 26 in city hall. She said it appears that county commissioners might not be able to provide the $20,000 for pool operations as last year. The city kicks in $2,000; and pool admissions help pay the bills. Dyer also noted that if the county allocates a requested $10,000 for Tom Pearce Park, that I.V. Pool should get the same amount. In connection with the pool, uniformed Boy Scout Sean Norvell addressed the council, expressing concern about the lack of the facility during the coming summer. The council, with member Sandi Lund absent, voted 4-0 to proceed with submission of an application for a $280,000 Community Development Block Grant for extension of water and sewer lines. The extension is seen as a tremen- dous boost toward realization of plans for a new facility to be operated by Siskiyou Com- mu n i t y He a l t h C e n t e r (SCHC). Lines are to run from River Street to a proposed site for a new SCHC facility. The site, on the east side of Red- wood Hwy., is approximately 300 yards north of Wild River Brewing & Pizza Co. In a cooperative move, SCHC and Illinois Valley Safe House Association (IVSHA) mutually agreed to allow the medical center to seek city sponsorship of the grant, rather than IVSHA. Dyer complimented the organizations on their spirit of (Continued on page 5) R&R Buyout Association hires consultant School senior Christina Yanase isn’t angry about the war in Iraq. She’s disap- pointed. Like several other stu- dents in Steve Morgan’s sec- ond period history/economics class, Yanase feels President Bush needed to have garnered more global support before initiating Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19. “I don’t think he should have gone in without the U.N.,” she said. The decision to send in U.S. military troops hits too close to home for Yanase, whose brother, Gregory is on a U.S. naval battleship in Bah- rain. Sitting in class the follow- ing morning, an involved dis- cussion about the first few hours of war having just ended, Yanase couldn’t help but think of her brother. She and her family spoke with him recently, she said, but she said she couldn’t disclose where he was. “I know he’s going to be OK,” she said, becoming teary. Many of Yanase’s class- mates are further removed from the direct effect of the war. They don’t have brothers in combat. Living in such a rural area, they don’t feel threatened with possible ter- rorist retaliation. Rising gas prices are perhaps the most noticeable result of the con- flict. Yet, for them, the war is as personal. “I think it’s really stupid,” said junior Alex Eaton. “You would think our government would be more concerned about imminent threats” like North Korea, who we know has nuclear weapons. Describing the situation as somewhat of a “political game” between President Bush and Saddam Hussein, Eaton added that Bush should be more concerned about the problems, the economic defi- cit especially, here at home. Another junior in the class, Lisa Teunissen, echoed similar views as to why she is against the war. The Bush ad- ministration, she said, did not succeed in proving that Sad- dam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. However, she said a war in Iraq was in- ALEX EATON ‘Regardless of (our) opin- ions, (we) need to sup- port the troops over there,’ Eaton said. evitable. “I think if it hadn’t come now, it would have come later,” she said. Since talk of probable military action climaxed, sen- ior Jessica McMahan, who supports the war, said she finds that she’s watching the news more and driving less. “I think he’s (President Bush) going in the right direc- tion. He wants to free the peo- ple of Iraq,” she said. Junior David Peckham, who is in Morgan’s third pe- riod AP History class, also believes Bush did the right thing. “Saddam Hussein does not deserve to be alive,” he said, noting he trusts the presi- dent and thinks he did a valid job of showing the American people that Iraq’s leader has weapons of mass destruction. Less trusting of the presi- dent’s reasons for why the United States is engaged in war, senior Brittany Robertson compared the current situation to the story of David & Goli- ath. “There was never really a question of if we are going to war, (but) when are we going to war,” she said. Some seventh- and eighth- graders in Bill Dunham’s cur- rent events class at Lorna Byrne Middle School shared similar, impassioned thoughts about the war on Friday, March 21. “I don’t support this,” said seventh-grader Nolan Bock- steigel, noting that the U.N. should have been able to look harder for weapons of mass destruction. (Continued on page 8) Employee efforts continue to save county’s last lumber company, and 150 valley jobs By SAM NEWTON Staff Writer To keep 150 family wage- earners employed, the Rough & Ready Buyout Association is entering another stage in the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). The plan has been in the works since shortly after the December announcement that Rough & Ready Lumber Co. would be closed due to the lack of timber supply. Bob Webb, association coordinator said that the The Beck Group (BECK), a forest products consulting, planning and benchmarking firm, has been hired to conduct a feasi- bility study. BECK will study the fea- sibility of changing the owner- ship of Rough & Ready to an ESOP. When completed, the study will include a business plan, market analysis, supply analysis, debt study, risks and rewards of reopening the mill and investigate the possibility of new income streams, such as co-generation or increased small log utilization. Webb, who made a trip to Salem in early March, was on the selection panel that deter- mined which firm was hired to do the study. “There were four firms to choose from -- it came down to two, but BECK by far had the most impressive project proposal,” said Webb. During the last decade, BECK has completed more than 30 separate competitive assessments or benchmarking studies in many segments of the forest products industry, including western and south- ern lumber, plywood, studs, and hardwood. The firm has international experience throughout Canada, as well as New Zealand and Australia. “Tom Beck, president of BECK, complimented Rough & Ready on its workforce,” said Webb, “and how the mill took care of its product (lumber). He said, ‘I can tell that the lumber had been cre- ated by a “real lumber man’,” said Webb. “It’s going to cost be- tween $30,000 and $35,000 to get the feasibility study done,” said Webb. “One of the other groups that was up for the job wanted $48,000, so that’s pretty good,” he said. After the study is com- pleted, the buyout association will present a business plan to financial institutions specializ- ing in loaning money to ESOPs. “The next step will be getting the financial assis- tance, then putting it out there that we are looking for logs and hopefully we can start purchasing them,” said Webb. CIVIL WAR HISTORY - Clay Feeter, a Curry County resident and Civil War history buff, will be at the Book Exchange in Western Plaza in Cave Junction on Friday, March 28. He helps people locate Civil War relatives. (See story on page 5)