'CLAN LABS' CAN KILL YOU

You probably know many of the dangers of illegal drugs. Still, Rolf Hill
from the Drug Enforcement Administration has a new danger for you to
consider. It's "clan labs" and the environmental damage they cause.

"Clan lab" is the DEA terminology for clandestine laboratory. Illegal drug
manufacturers and their clan labs are responsible for some of the most
polluting substances that ever get into the environment.

To manufacture illegal drugs, clan labs routinely use materials that are
highly toxic, flammable, explosive, reactive, corrosive or even
radioactive. A common formula for making methamphetamines, for example,
includes among its possible byproducts phosgene gas, one of the poison
gases used in World War I.

The chemicals used in clan labs could be handled safely if the laboratories
made use of the safety equipment that you'd find in a legal laboratory.
However, clan labs rarely have the needed safety equipment.

An additional problem is that the people making the illegal drugs - known
as "cooks" - seldom have even a high school education. Often the clan lab
cooks have little understanding of the chemistry behind what they're doing.

For example, the cooks may be completely unaware of the need for
ventilation. This is a problem because combustible vapors from the
chemicals they're mixing can be ignited by something as minor as turning on
a light switch.

The fumes can also impair a person's judgment. If the cooks have been
exposed to enough fumes, they may find it impossible to measure accurately,
or their hand-to-eye coordination may be impaired. They may spill chemicals
or make other mistakes.

Hill and his colleagues at DEA frequently see photographs of the deadly
results. Hill himself has seen pictures of drug cooks lying dead on the
floor after exposure to deadly gases. Or he's seen pictures of bodies
burned beyond recognition.

The health problems for the cooks range from serious to life-ending, but
the damage of the drugs doesn't stop there. Hill and his colleagues agree
that people who are sociopathic enough to make illegal drugs aren't likely
to have much concern for the environment.

When it comes to dumping the toxic byproducts of the clan labs, these
people will typically try to dump the material down a sewer, flush it down
a toilet, toss it off a bridge or simply dump it, say on a farmer's corn
field. From there, it can either poison the aquatic life or maybe seep into
the groundwater and poison the nearby drinking water.

The bad news is that the number of clan labs is increasing year by year. In
1991, the DEA was called on to clean up 450 of them. The comparable figure
for last year was 4,500. The good news is that we're getting smarter and
smarter about doing it effectively.

It used to cost $17,000 to clean up the toxic chemicals from a clan lab.
Today the DEA has a nationwide network of contractors with sophisticated
techniques for doing it, and the price per cleanup has dropped to $4,000.

Hill, like other Americans, has a host of reasons for despising illegal
drugs. He has the usual reasons, such as knowing the devastation to
families that these substances cause. But added to that is his anger over
the pollution the cooks regularly cause.

He wishes that all Americans - and for that matter, all people - would keep
drugs out of their lives.

On the Net: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea.

Mitzi Perdue writes about environmentally related matters for Scripps
Howard News Service.