METH LABS CAUSE RISE IN BURN CASES

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- At a conference on the scourge of methamphetamine, one
item on the agenda was a tour of a seemingly unlikely place: A burn unit.

Legislators, doctors, social workers and law officials -- including the
federal government's second highest-ranking drug czar -- walked the halls
of Vanderbilt University Medical Center regional burn center, where seven
of the 20 patients were injured by fires and explosions in clandestine meth
labs.

Vanderbilt doctors told Joseph Keefe, deputy director of the Office on
National Drug Control Policy, and the other participants that meth cases
are increasingly common and are driving up state medical expenditures. The
costs of treating critically injured burn victims typically exceed $10,000
a day each -- and most meth patients don't have health insurance.

"As bad as this may sound, as a burn doctor I almost wish another drug, one
less volatile that doesn't regularly explode during the manufacturing
process, would come down the pike to overtake the popularity of meth," said
the center's director, Dr. Jeff Guy.

Standing in the doorway of one patient's room Tuesday, Guy told Keefe that
the man had spent 45 days in a hospital from an October meth blast and "has
gone out and blown himself up again."

The man, Guy said, has been in the burn unit about 30 days from the second
injury and his medical costs to date total about $240,000. He said such
victims often end up collecting disability.

Meth is also hurting innocents, Guy said.

A child was severely burned inside a trailer where someone cooking meth had
lined interior walls with plastic to trap the odorous, toxic fumes, he said.

"We are seeing kids in meth labs," Guy said.

Keefe described what he saw in the burn unit as "devastating."

Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous
system and is cooked from over-the-counter ingredients. Tennessee leads the
nation in meth lab seizures and accounts for three-quarters of such busts
in the South.

Between October 2003 and August 2004, the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration broke up about 1,200 clandestine meth labs in Tennessee, a
nearly 400 percent increase from 2000. Also, Tennessee removed an estimated
750 children from the custody of meth abusers last year, up from 2003.

Ingredients cooked to make the drug include common cold medicines and
workplace chemicals. Even when labs don't explode, the toxic vapors
contaminate property and can cause health problems.

Meth users account for 607,000 of the country's 19.5 million drug users in
2003, according to the most recent statistics from the Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

Keefe commended Gov. Phil Bredesen and Tennessee lawmakers for approaching
the drug problem with tougher criminal laws, public education and addiction
treatment.

Tennessee's new meth-fighting measures, recommendations from a task force
appointed by Bredesen, would move certain cold medicines that contain
pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters. It sailed through the Legislature
on Monday and will be signed into law by Bredesen on Wednesday.

Other states have restricted access to pseudoephedrine, including Oklahoma,
Iowa, Arkansas and Kentucky. Tennessee lawmakers began pushing for the
change after Oklahoma saw a big decrease in meth after implementing their
anti-meth policies.

"I think meth is a scourge and a cancer, particularly in our rural areas
right now," Bredesen said last month. "I see it most acutely in the several
hundred children last year that were coming into state custody because they
are part of meth households. . . . This is terrible stuff."