MORE COULD FACE JAIL TIME FOR METH

Governor Would Stiffen Penalty For Labs, Spend Money For Officers,
Offenders, Children

Gov. Phil Bredesen's plan to spend $7 million fighting the state's
methamphetamine epidemic will be a diverse effort that funnels funds into
incarceration and rehabilitation of offenders, more training for law
enforcement officers and additional services for children taken from homes
where meth labs have been seized, his office disclosed yesterday.

In addition, a centerpiece of the governor's strategy calls for
over-the-counter cold remedies, whose ingredients are vital to the
manufacture of the highly addictive drug, to be sold only from behind store
counters.

The initiative, announced this week during the governor's annual State of
the State address, generally won praise from prosecutors and law enforcement.

"It's all conservative, common-sense stuff," said District Attorney General
Bill Gibson of the 13th Judicial District in Cookeville. His office has
prosecuted thousands of methamphetamine cases since the homemade drug first
arrived in his area a decade ago.

Under the governor's plan, which will require approval from the state
legislature, $2.95 million would be spent in recurring costs, meaning they
would need money each year. The balance would be spent for one-time costs.

The recurring costs include:

. $2.4 million for longer prison sentences of an estimated 130 offenders
per year. According to Will Pinkston, aide to the governor, legislation
will be introduced to create the new offense of methamphetamine
manufacturing. Under current law, meth cooks can claim they were making the
drug only for their personal use and receive a lighter punishment.

"Our code is outdated in the way that it treats meth in terms of other
drugs," Pinkston said. "We don't want meth cooks skating by to a lighter
penalty."

Details of the proposed legislation are still being hammered out, he said.

. $500,000 per year to Child Advocacy Centers in meth-plagued judicial
districts. There are 27 of these nonprofit centers across the state, with
six in areas where meth use is rampant. Most of these centers are on the
Cumberland Plateau between East and Middle Tennessee. How the money will be
distributed is unclear at this time, Pinkston said.

. $50,000 for the state Department of Education's Safe and Drug Free
Schools Program, which promotes substance-abuse awareness in schools.

Nonrecurring, or one-time costs, include:

. $1.5 million for a statewide public service campaign lasting from 18
months to two years about the dangers of the drug. Part of the campaign may
be a speakers tour, where recovering meth addicts speak to schools.

. $1.74 million for a drug court residential-treatment pilot project. The
one-to two-year experiment would fund treatment of convicted meth addicts
from certain rural areas at Davidson County's Drug Court residential
program. If the program is successful, it may be expanded to other areas of
the state.

. $600,000 for statewide meth lab awareness training of law officers and
other first responders. The training would focus on how to respond when a
lab is discovered.

. $150,000 for seminars on changes in the methamphetamine laws for law
enforcement officers, prosecutors and others in the legal community.

In addition, the governor's battle plan seeks to remove products containing
pseudoephedrine and ephedrine from store shelves. These products, found in
over-the-counter cold remedies, are key ingredients for making
methamphetamine. If the plan is approved, store customers would have to ask
a sales clerk for those medicines.

"We are basically very supportive of sales limitations," said Russell Palk,
president of the Tennessee Retail Association. He said his group's primary
concern is moving hundreds of products behind the counter.

Mark Gwyn, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said getting
the cold remedies out of the hands of the meth makers is crucial to his
department's effort.

"Without putting pseudoephedrine behind the counter I don't see it making
an impact because these people are still going to buy boxes at a time to
make this drug," Gwyn said.