DANGERS OF DRUG HOUSES

PROTECTING the public health is one of the basic charges of
government, making it incomprehensible that a bill to mandate the
cleanup of former methamphetamine labs in homes, apartments,
vehicles, or hotel/motel rooms before people are allowed to take up
residence has been stuck in an Ohio House committee for more than
eight months.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Dyer (D., Green), would require
the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to establish cleanup
standards and the Ohio Department of Public Safety to create a
public database of properties used as meth labs so that people could
check online about potential health risks before buying or renting.
Properties that have met the cleanup standards would be dropped from
the Web list.

Mr. Dyer said the bill got an initial hearing in the Homeland
Security and Veterans Affairs Committee months ago and he is willing
to compromise on details of the measure, but has heard nothing from
committee chairman Steve Reinhard (R., Bucyrus) about the bill's future.

Methamphetamines are a growing scourge in American society. Highly
addictive, they also are cheap and easy to produce, so meth labs
have proliferated across the United States in recent years.
According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, meth labs in more than 100
houses, apartments, and hotel rooms have been busted in
the Cincinnati area since 2000, while about 350 former sites have
been discovered in the seven-county area surrounding the Queen City
and extending into Kentucky.

Residue from the manufacture of meth, as well as contamination from
the raw materials, chemicals used in production, and the finished
product remain long after the lab has been busted. It can permeate
everything in the house: the walls, carpets, draperies, clothes,
toys, even the duct work. As the newspaper report noted, while no
one is sure just how harmful these substances are long term, police
officers dress in protective "moon suits" to avoid contact. Families
that moved into former meth-lab homes, unaware of their past, have
complained of chronic nose bleeds and coughing spasms.

Potentially, there are thousands of these sites across the state,
meaning that many thousands of people may be at risk of
contamination. Yet Ohio, unlike 16 other states, including Kentucky
and Indiana, has no laws setting standards for cleanup or even
requiring that potential buyers be informed of the risk. Mr.
Reinhard says the bill is stuck where it is until questions about
who will fund it and do the testing are answered. But eight months
is more than enough time to find the answers, if the committee is
looking, and Mr. Dyer says no one has come to him with these concerns.

It is worth noting that Mr. Dyer is a Democrat and that Democrats
typically have a hard time moving legislation in the
Republican-controlled House, regardless of the bill's merits. We
certainly hope Mr. Reinhard would not endanger Ohioans for the sake
of political mulishness.