METH'S IMPACT ON ANDERSON COUNTY

Exploring possible solutions

Anderson County Sheriff Bill White spent two days at the Methamphetamine
Response conference in Nashville, where he learned what issues other
agencies are having with the manufacturing of meth and discussed ways to
resolve some of those issues. The conference, called Methamphetamine
Response: A Multidiscipline Approach to Protecting Tennessee Communities,
was held Monday through Wednesday in Nashville. The conference was sponsored
by many Tennessee agencies and organizations whose offices have been
affected by the growing number of clandestine labs found in Tennessee or the
people making the illegal and volatile drug.

Pictured are blister packs from over-the-counter cold medicine and an empty
can of Coleman fuel that were found in a meth lab earlier this year.
Speakers in workshops at the conference discussed many aspects of
methamphetamine including manufacturing issues, child and family
endangerment, investigations, community education, risks and strategies and
resources. In Monday's workshop, retailers were targeted in an effort to
teach them what to look for when customers are purchasing products
associated with making meth. Later this week, the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation will initiate the Tennessee Meth Watch. Retailers will have a
toll-free number to call to report suspicious purchases and be given posters
about products and Tennessee Meth Watch stickers to place inside store doors
and at cash registers.

The program is geared to help catch people who are making meth in
clandestine labs in their home or other places.

Health issues were on the table on Tuesday, with the focus on children in
homes where meth is being made and its effect on them. Also discussed on
Tuesday was the issue of decontamination and health care professionals as
well as others who have become sick because of meth-laced clothing and
chemicals found in bodily fluids.

Chief Deputy Lewis Ridenour, who attended the conference on Monday, said
Anderson County deputies and jailers have not become ill because the
Sheriff's Department takes precautions when going into a house where a lab
is and when removing someone from a lab.

"We dress them (meth makers) out in protective clothing and then have them
shower when we take them to jail," Ridenour said.

According to the Associated Press, Barry S. Wagner, director of medical
recruiting at Emergency Coverage Corp. in Knoxville and a member of the
Cumberland Medical Center in Crossville, said at the conference that health
care professionals have been sickened by the stench of a drug user's clothes
and chemicals found in bodily fluids.

"We don't have all the answers because all the answers don't exist," he said
Tuesday during a panel discussion at the three-day Methamphetamine Response
Conference. "If you treat this as a typical diagnostic problem, you're going
to come out on the short end of the stick."

Typically, emergency room personnel are taught the ABCs of treatment:
airway, breathing, circulation. But when dealing with a meth user, "D" for
decontamination must come first.

Wagner recommended that emergency staff immediately undress a meth user,
then bag and burn the clothes at a secure site.

Currently, Tennessee is second in the nation in meth production, according
to U.S. District Attorney James Vines of Nashville, who was among several
officials to say that the drug is the worst they've dealt with in their
careers.

During fiscal 2000, 235 clandestine meth labs were found in Tennessee. In
fiscal 2003, which ended in September, 1,154 labs were found, said Harry
Sommers of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.