SHERIFFS TO ASK FOR TOUGHER METH-MAKING PENALTIES

ELIZABETHTON - Carter County Sheriff John Henson said Wednesday he and his
colleagues across the state will be lobbying state legislators when they return
to Nashville in January to increase the penalties for those convicted of
manufacturing crystal methamphetamine. Henson said meth laboratories have
become a growing problem in Tennessee. He said three such clandestine labs were
discovered in Carter County last week alone.

"Crystal meth is one of the most dangerous drugs on the street now, and it is
showing up more and more," Henson told the Rotary Club of Elizabethton. "I
don't think a majority of the people know just how dangerous it is."

And the sheriff said drug dealers are "cooking meth" in some of the most
unlikely places. Henson said his deputies have recently found evidence of
meth-manufacturing operations in the back of an abandoned pickup truck and in a
remote area of Roan Mountain.

"We have busted seven meth labs in the last three weeks," he said. "The current
fines and penalties for operating a meth lab are just not steep enough."

That is one of the things Henson and Tennessee's other 94 sheriffs hope to see
changed by the state General Assembly next year. Henson said he and his
colleagues plan to lobby "the House and the Senate to bring up laws to make it
harder on those convicted of operating a meth lab."

He said cleaning up meth labs has become a constant and often dangerous job for
law enforcement officials across the state. He said 25 labs were taken out of
action in Johnson County in 2002.

He said it takes special crews wearing hazardous material suits to clean up a
single meth manufacturing operation, at a cost of nearly $4,000 to taxpayers.

"The materials they use in these labs can be very explosive," he said.

Adding to the problem, the sheriff said, is the fact that most of the
ingredients needed to manufacture meth can be purchased at any grocery store.
He said law enforcement officials have been frustrated by the reluctance of
officials in Washington to address the situation.

He said Congress recently "watered down" legislation that would have required
those purchasing large amounts of the products used in the manufacturing of
meth to be reported to law enforcement agencies.

"We just don't know how to handle it yet," Henson said.

What he does know, the sheriff said Wednesday, is that meth is being sold on
the streets in Carter County and is a "very dangerous drug."

"You use it one time and you're hooked," he said. "After using it for three
years, it will begin to crystallize in your lungs."