BULLS GAP INCIDENT SHOWS JUST HOW DEADLY METHAMPHETAMINE IS

Drug Enforcement Administration Director Asa Hutchinson will be in East
Tennessee Thursday as part of his national "Meth in America: Not in Our
Town" tour - an effort aimed at increasing awareness about the devastating
effects of methamphetamine.

But the timing of Hutchinson's well-intentioned visit is ripe with an
unintentional and tragic irony. The DEA director's visit, coming as it does
in the wake of a Bulls Gap meth lab explosion last week that killed two men
and left another in intensive care, seems profoundly superfluous.

After such an incident, a news conference discussing the danger of meth
addiction and production is scarcely needed.

Here, in our own backyard, the devastatingly deadly effects of meth are all
too obvious.

According to Hawkins County Sheriff Wayne Clevinger, a 9-1-1 call from a
man complaining of shortness of breath on Lawson Road in Bulls Gap Monday
led to the discovery of a methamphetamine lab that had exploded a few days
earlier.

The force of the explosion was so powerful, the sheriff said, that a
section of a wall at the mobile home had been blown out.

Hawkins deputies have been able to determine that one man was apparently
killed instantly in the explosion and that a second man, found dead in a
bathroom in the mobile home, had lingered for hours or days after the
blast, finally succumbing to exposure to the caustic chemicals used in
producing the methamphetamine.

"Obviously, they didn't call for help at first due to the illegal nature of
what they were doing," Clevinger says, "but by Monday morning, the third
man was concerned enough for his life to call 9-1-1."

Only last month in this space we warned that Tennessee was shaping up as
the latest battleground for the production and use of methamphetamine. Now,
it would seem, we are, literally, on the front line of that battle.

Meth cooks and traffickers often operate in small towns and rural areas.
They find them perfect havens to make and distribute their dangerous drug.
Hundreds of labs have been discovered in Tennessee in just the last year.
And the problem is getting worse. The DEA, alone, seized more than 460 labs
in the state last year, a 150 percent increase since 2000. With an average
cleanup cost of $3,000, meth labs are also putting a huge financial strain
on the state's resources at a time when money is in extraordinarily short
supply.

Meth continues to ruin countless lives, filling jails and prisons - and
morgues - flooding courts and frustrating overworked law enforcement agencies.

Because most people may be unaware that they're living near a meth lab,
here are some things to be aware of:

. Strong odors similar to that of fingernail polish remover or urine.

. Residences with windows blacked out.

. Renters who pay their landlords in cash. (Most drug dealers trade
exclusively in cash.)

. Lots of traffic - people coming and going at unusual times. There may be
little traffic during the day, but at night, the activity increases
dramatically.

. Purchases of large amounts of products, especially cold medicines.

. Excessive trash, including large amounts of items such as antifreeze
containers, drain cleaner, lantern fuel cans, red chemically stained coffee
filters, batteries, drain cleaner and duct tape.

If you observe any of these tell-tale signs, immediately contact your
nearest law enforcement agency. Ending the scourge of methamphetamine
begins with each of us.