OWENS LAW TARGETING METH LABS

Governor Calls Drug 'Scourge, Sickness'

Standing on a playground about 100 yards from where three methamphetamine
labs once spewed dangerous toxins into a quiet Arvada neighborhood, Gov.
Bill Owens signed legislation Thursday making it easier for law enforcement
to shut them down.

The highly contaminated houses and a shed on West 64th Avenue are now off
limits to people because they are so highly contaminated from the drugs,
authorities said.

"It's been a very scary experience for us," said Jeannette Teske, principal
of Tennyson Knolls Elementary School, noting school officials had no idea
the labs were there until they saw officers on school property.

The playground soil had to be tested to make sure it hadn't been
contaminated by the poisonous chemicals used to produce the drug, she said.

The white frame houses, owned by four generations of the same family, were
among 452 shut down by drug-enforcement officers in Colorado last year. The
number of meth labs closed this year is already 30 percent higher than last
year, said Lt. Lauri Moriarty of the North Metro Drug Enforcement Task Force.

"It is a scourge and a sickness that has invaded this Centennial State,"
Owens said, flanked by members of the drug task force, State Patrol,
firefighters and police officers. "The problem quite literally is exploding
statewide," he said, citing fires in homes, hotels and dorm rooms that have
killed and injured those making the drug, said to be more addictive than
heroin or cocaine.

Owens, fresh from a fundraising trip for Pennsylvania gubernatorial
candidate Mike Fisher, said one of the most insidious aspects of
methamphetamine is that it can be manufactured in neighborhoods with
ingredients from common-cold medicines.

Senate Bill 50 makes it a felony to stockpile large quantities of legal
drugs such as Sudafed. House Bill 1038 makes it illegal to possess
supplies, equipment and chemicals that can be used to make meth, including
ammonia and drain cleaner, the lithium metal in batteries, and hot plates
to cook the drug.

Neighbors said they were unaware of the labs until authorities raided them.
Now they fear drug makers will sneak back to the houses and continue their
dangerous enterprise.

Neighbor Lisa Wrenshall asked Owens when he was going to clean the houses.
Owens said the state did not have the money to do that this year.

"This is a toxic-waste site. It needs to go," Wrenshall said.