Safety Measures:

METHODIST'S METH PROJECT IMPROVES FIRST RESPONDERS' ODDS

The State Bureau of Investigation reports that the number of
methamphetamine labs discovered in North Carolina increased almost
tenfold from 2001 through 2004, from dozens to hundreds. It may be
too early to call that a trend, but it isn't too early to say that
meth is a serious threat.

It's a threat to the health of the users, of course, and to anyone
who gets crosswise of an addict.

It's a threat to the producers, who risk immolation in obedience to
the law of supply and demand.

It's even a threat to the environment, because there's much more
toxic byproduct than marketable drug left at the end of the process
and the waste is invariably (and unlawfully) dumped, creating one or
more new hazards in one or more new locations.

Those at greatest risk are, unsurprisingly, the ones on the front
line. Law enforcement officers put their lives at risk even when
there's no suspect around at the time of a raid. And every lab is a
"hazmat" situation in which the lab must be disassembled and the
materials removed amid the threats of poisoning, explosion and fire.

In the period mentioned above, more than two dozen first responders
were injured. There surely have been others since.

Methodist University is positioning itself to give those people a
better shot at both success and survival. The school has been
authorized almost $400,000 to set up a Methamphetamine Educational
Training Project that will help those first responders take advantage
of improved information and technology.

The federal grant, obtained through the efforts of Congressmen Bob
Etheridge and Mike McIntyre and U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth
Dole, will pay for forensic lab equipment and training aids to teach
students and law enforcement officers to attack the problem from
several angles at once.

Detection, disruption of production, disassembly, removal, site
remediation -- all are on this agenda, as is getting it done with the
lowest risk that such work allows.

None of it addresses the demand side of the equation, so realistic
expectations are in order. But it's realistic to view meth as an
especially pernicious division of the illicit drug industry, and we
expect good things to result from this initiative.