Officers with the Peel police Morality Bureau and Mississauga fire officials were still removing toxic chemicals and other property from the Mariner Crt. home yesterday. It took investigators two days to get into the area home, as levels of potentially-deadly chemicals remained high until Wednesday morning.
Furthermore, residents of 18 area homes were evacuated this week as a precaution.
Police also called in Team-1 Emergency Services, a Hamilton-based chemical disposal firm that has dismantled more than 100 meth labs.
The lab was discovered last Sunday night after an explosion and fire in the home sent two men, 33-year-old Jason White, who lived there, and Rino Fazio, 45, running for their lives onto the street. White later died from his injuries. Fazio remains in critical condition at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
Mississauga firefighters who responded to the blaze contacted police when they discovered a "clandestine drug laboratory."
The meth lab is the largest Team-1 has dealt with, according to Peel police.
Peel Det. Dan Valleau said the lab covered the main floor and basement of the home. "It qualifies as a super lab," he said.
Meth labs are new to Peel police, and this is the first discovered in Mississauga.
However, Mark McLaughlin, president of the Crystal Meth Victoria Society, said there are likely more here.
"I would think that would be a reasonable assumption," he said in an interview yesterday. "The movement of this product from the west is well underway and the sad part is we don't notice them unless we get a big explosion, big fire, or dead people."
Valleau said there's no indication the Mariner Crt. lab signals a trend. "I'm hoping we're not going to be seeing them more in residential areas," he said. "That would be a scary proposition."
McLaughlin said these types of labs are extremely dangerous, to both the producers and neighbours.
"These are not university-graduate chemists producing the drug. These are people who are probably stoned themselves trying to cook up meth using products under the kitchen sink," he said.
There is a huge market for meth because, "for cheaper than the price of a movie ticket, you get a 10-to-14-hour intoxication," he added.
Methamphetamine, also known as speed, meth, crystal meth and chalk, is produced by cooking a mixture of more than a dozen dangerous chemicals. The process produces unstable fumes, which can explode.
Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jul 2006
Source: Mississauga News (CN ON)
