want to report a meth lab. here is one the cops run - Another cubicle a few feet away contains a working methamphetamine lab where officers can see, smell and feel drugs being cooked up. Original Article Terror training hits the road Officials learn to spot drugs, bomb Joseph A. Reaves The Arizona Republic Apr. 13, 2005 12:00 AM GLOBE - The state troopers, Border Patrol agent and agriculture inspector were pretty proud of themselves for finding the two rocket-propelled grenade launchers hidden beneath a stack of wooden pallets in a parked 18-wheeler outside the Gila County Fairgrounds on Tuesday morning. So proud, in fact, they almost overlooked the fake nuclear bomb wedged into a secret compartment in the truck's floorboard. Good thing this was all just a training session. "Welcome to the post-9/11 world," said a grim-faced Travis Baxley, one of two dozen instructors leading Arizona's first-of-its-kind bioterrorism awareness school. "Imagine what would happen if a real bomb like this ended up in Disneyland." The training program, approved and funded by the Department of Homeland Security, drew 80 law enforcement officers and inspectors from across the state for three days of intensive, hands-on practice at sniffing out drug smugglers and potential terrorists. "Hopefully, we'll never have to find a 'dirty' bomb like the one we have hidden here," said Joe David, 52, a former California Highway Patrol officer who originally founded his "Desert Snow" program 15 years ago to train officers to spot cocaine smugglers. "But it would be wonderful to know we can find them if we have to." Graduates of David's training sessions already have proved they can do that. Charlie Hanger, the state trooper who pulled Timothy McVeigh over and arrested him shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, had just finished the Desert Snow course. The three-day training session teaches state troopers, sheriff's deputies, Border Patrol agents, agriculture inspectors and transportation officials how to spot potential terrorists and smugglers on the highway. Arizona, California and Florida are the only three states in the country with ports of entry conducting regular agricultural inspections. Diane Parker, operations manager of the port of entry at San Simon, said she attended a Desert Snow school in Florida earlier this year and recommended the state Agriculture Department send its inspectors. Twenty-one inspectors were enrolled in the first session this week. Last year, inspectors at Arizona's five major border crossings checked out 165,000 commercial trailers, an average of nearly 19 inspections per hour every hour of the day, seven days a week, all year-round. Each one of those vehicles has the potential to carry illegal drugs or weapons of terror. Students sit through four hours of lectures, then spend the next 2 1/2 days rotating among 12 hands-on exercises. A series of wooden cubicles in a dimly lit corner of the Gila County Fairgrounds exhibition hall simulates the 8-foot rental trailer that McVeigh used to haul the ammonium nitrate bomb that killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. Another cubicle a few feet away contains a working methamphetamine lab where officers can see, smell and feel drugs being cooked up. Five tractor-trailer rigs parked a few dozen yards apart each offer different training perspectives. One has the fake "dirty" bomb and rocket-propelled grenades. Others have drugs. Still another is used to point out the different markings and modifications that serve as telltale hints that something is amiss. Sgt. Dan Alexander, a 24-year veteran of the Gila County Sheriff's Office, said he thought his Desert Snow training would help him stay on the heels of the bad guys. "Since 9/11, it's all changed, and this training makes a world of difference," Alexander said. "I see my job as being the one to make sure those drugs and that truck bomb never get into Phoenix."