CURRENT TECHNOLOGIES CAN AID IN METH FIGHT, TASK FORCE TOLD

HARRIMAN - In the near future, technologies currently used to detect
chemical weapons and explosives could be adapted to the government's
struggle against methamphetamine.

That was the message delivered to the Governor's Task Force on
Methamphetamine Abuse at a meeting Monday at Roane State Community College
in Harriman by officials from the Tennessee National Guard and Oak Ridge
National Laboratory.

Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed the 20-member panel to study the problem with
the drug, a habit-forming stimulant distilled from over-the-counter cold
medicines containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, after lawmakers failed
to agree on meth legislation in March.

The panel has been asked to present its recommendations to Bredesen by Sept. 1.

Over the past few years, the number of meth labs discovered in Tennessee
has skyrocketed, prompting officials to label the drug's popularity an
epidemic. Thousands of arrests have been made and hundreds of children
removed from homes in East Tennessee since the late 1990s, according to
state and federal statistics.

The processes used to make meth can trigger fires and explosions as well as
release toxic chemicals, forcing authorities to spend hundreds of thousands
of dollars cleaning up lab sites.

Monday's meeting focused on how current technologies are being used to
fight meth and what tools might be available in the near future.

Col. Bill Hartbarger of the Tennessee National Guard explained how his
agency was recently asked to bring an ion scanner to Johnson City because
officials suspected that the drug was being made in a child's home.

Using the handheld scanner - which can also detect other illegal drugs as
well as explosives - the guardsmen "detected the actual presence of meth on
the child's clothes," Hartbarger said.

"Children are the real victims here," said Tullahoma Mayor Steve Cope, who
heads the panel's working group on how the drug affects communities.

Lee Riedinger, deputy director for science and technology at ORNL, opened
up a presentation on several different technologies under development that
could potentially be adapted to help detect meth labs.

For instance, hyperspectral imaging, used to detect leaking freon and
ammonia after the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001,
could probably detect large meth-making operations from the air, officials
said.

Even though small labs make up 95 percent of those labs seized by the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration, "super labs" account for 78
percent of the methamphetamine production in the United States, according
to an ORNL summary handed out to task force members.

A mass spectrometer that has been used to detect chemical weapons around
the world could also be adapted to sniff out meth labs, ORNL officials
said, and other technologies also show promise.

The task force also reviewed several strategies under consideration
including increasing Department of Children's Services resources, working
on cooperation between agencies and adopting new restrictions on how
ephedrine-based products may be sold.