TASK FORCE ON METH ABUSE WANTS CLEAN-UP STANDARDS SET UP QUICKER

The Governor's Task Force on Methamphetamine Abuse is recommending a move
to speed up establishing clean-up standards for property damaged by labs
used to produce the illegal drug.

Task Force members, Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Nashville, and Tullahoma Mayor
Steve Cope, also the leader of the Task Force's Community Working Group,
have drafted a letter that has been forwarded to Bredesen.

They are requesting the Tennessee Department of Environment and
Conservation be allowed to proceed immediately to establish decontamination
standards for meth-lab-damaged property.

The Task Force and other civic and state leaders have said extreme health
hazards are at issue regarding cleaning up areas where meth labs have been.

Another issue Curtiss and Cope highlight in their letter is that with no
clean-up standard in place, owners could be forced to have their property
quarantined until Autumn 2005 or longer.

"We believe this delay would be unnecessary given the fact that experiences
and standards in other states can provide an effective blueprint for
Tennessee to rapidly establish its own decontamination standard," they say
in the letter.

Cope said that through the governor's signing of an executive order, TDEC
could begin work almost immediately to determine the cleanup safety standards.

Cope and Curtiss say in the letter that Public Chapter 855, introduced by
Curtiss, took effect on July 1 and gives local law enforcement branches
authority to quarintine meth-damaged property.

Because of that, Cope said determinine what the cleanup standards are
should be determined as soon as possible at the state level.

"Normally, the process could take a year, but we want the standards set now
in the name of public safety," he said.

In other recent developments, the Task Force was provided with input from
the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs about how that state's
recently passed law has targeted the unrestricted sale of drugs containing
pseudoephedrine.

The cold and sinus medicine can can be turned into highly addictive
methamphetamine with little equipment or expertise.

The task force is debating how to best restrict the sale of
pseudoephedrine. It also wants to establish a registration system for
buyers without infringing on the people who buy it because they have a cold
or sinus infection.

Cope said the move is on the right track but has to be a statewide
initiative before it could really be effective.

He said Oklahoma focused on restricting mainly tablets that contain the
cold medicine.

He said most meth cookers tend to use tablets because they take less effort
to cook down than shell caps or liguid forms of the medicine.

However, Cope said with meth cookers, when there's a will, there's a way,
so if Tennessee's laws and city ordinances only restricted tablet sales,
the other forms would be used anyway.

Pharmacists have expressed problems with the proposed sales restrictions.

Eric Douglas, manager of state legislative relations for Walgreen Co.,
which operates pharmacies across Tennessee, told the Task Force his company
is complying with anti-meth laws in other states and wants to work with
Tennessee.

He said Walgreen Co. has some problems with the age restriction of the
Oklahoma law, and also said restricting these drugs to pharmacies presents
some safety problems.

"Pharmacists tell us they get whole van loads of people come in, and they
all pile out, buy the legal limit of pseudoephedrine and leave," Douglas
said. "I'm not going to tell a 25-year-old female pharmacist she should
tell five or six grown men they can't buy it. Putting the onus completely
on the pharmacists is unsafe."

Cope said despite those problems, any unified statewide effort to curb
sales of the ingredients that go into meth needs to be done.

"Yes it's an inconveniences, but it's worth it," he said, referring to the
restrictions. "Methamphetamine has become a cancer to many communities."

He said if only Tullahoma restricted sales, meth cookers would buy the
products elsewhere and come back to cook the product. He added that
initiatives through laws need to be taken to keep meth cookers moving out.

"We need to keep pushing those people out of Tennessee and out of the
neighboring states if we can and maybe push them into the sea," Cope said.