BANGOR – A transient, who was carrying a backpack filled with the components and materials needed to make methamphetamine, was arrested Sunday at a local motel and charged with felony trafficking in meth.
Agents with the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency had a room at Motel 6 on outer Hammond Street under surveillance after an informant contacted police in southern Maine and told them that people in the room were in the process of setting up a meth lab.
“The caller further reported that additional materials to run that lab had just been delivered and that there was a mother and baby inside the motel room,” Darrell Crandall, MDEA division commander, said in a Wednesday press release.
Stephen Dill, 26, was in the motel room, along with several others, when MDEA laboratory response team agents and Bangor police officers simultaneously raided the room and stopped a carload of people attempting to leave.
In the car was a young mother and her 10-month-old son.
Police determined that Dill owned the backpack, which contained vapor inhalers, acid, ether and lye, arrested him and took him to Penobscot County Jail. He made his first appearance for the Class B crime on Monday and remained in jail on Wednesday, a jail official said.
“He had all the ingredients to do it, but we stopped him before he began to cook,” said Garry Higgins on Tuesday. Higgins is the MDEA’s supervisory special agent for the Bangor-based North Central Regional Taskforce, District 5.
If the “cooking” process had been started, containment would have been necessary to prevent possible injuries, because the chemicals used in the process can be volatile and explosive. Meth labs have to be cleaned up as hazardous waste sites, according to drug enforcement officials.
Since Dill was out on bail for an August burglary arrest in Bangor, he also was charged with violating his conditions of release. If convicted of the drug offense, Dill faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. He will be arraigned in Penobscot Superior Court in the near future.
MDEA agents, pursuant to their drug endangered children protocol, also called the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the small child who had been in the motel room, Crandall said.
Methamphetamine stimulates the central nervous system with effects similar to cocaine. The synthetic drug can be produced easily using common store-bought items, including cold and allergy medications containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in methamphetamine.
However, “the manufacturing process for methamphetamine using vapor inhalers is uncommon, at least in Maine, because it does not produce the more dramatic effects of other forms of methamphetamine, and ‘cooks’ are often unsuccessful,” Crandall said.
Since April 2005, MDEA laboratory response team agents have responded to 57 reports of suspected meth labs, and of those 14 were confirmed labs or lab dump sites, he said. Those labs were found in Allagash, Auburn, Bangor, Bath, Calais, Caribou, Lewiston, Milford, Portland and Veazie. The Veazie incident involved a 17-year-old male with an extensive juvenile criminal history who was arrested after police discovered the makings of a methamphetamine lab in his State Street apartment.
Luckily, in the Bangor arrest, “none of the packaging had been opened on the components found at the motel, and there was no evidence to suggest there had yet been any exposure inside the motel room,” Crandall said.
Several law enforcement agencies worked together to arrest Dill, and the staff and management of the motel also were cooperative with police, he said.
“Although ‘backpack labs’ are encountered by police around the country, Maine has not yet seen very many,” Crandall said. “The most recent was found in Portland in December of 2005.”
Those with information on drug trafficking in their communities may contact the MDEA at 800-452-6457.
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