editorial comment Pile it on!!!! Why, it must be part of the Kyoto Protocol then.....

It's cheap and easy to make, and law enforcement officials throughout the county say it's by far the biggest drug problem they're dealing with.

It can also injure people -- adults and children -- who've never bought, used, heard of or even seen the drug.

It's methamphetamine, or, as your teenager probably has heard, “meth.”

It comes in dozens of varieties that can be brewed from scores of recipes almost anyone can find, using things such as cold pills, anhydrous ammonia, antifreeze, lye and ether. This class of addictive synthetic drugs with amphetamines as a main ingredient was once a nasal decongestant and used to keep soldiers in World War II alert and moving. A 1965 change in federal law that pulled many amphetamines from the U.S. market created a black market industry for meth. In four decades it has gone from a West Coast biker drug to a national headache, with 58 percent of more than 500 law enforcement agencies in a July 2005 report by the National Association of Counties pegging meth as their No. 1 drug issue - more than cocaine (19 percent), marijuana (17) or heroine (3). While Cayuga Medical Center says meth cases are still rare here, a NACO study just released Wednesday showed hospitals nationwide calling meth their top emergency room drug problem.
Meth has become a particular problem for rural areas, where proximity to farms creates a supply of some needed ingredients and small basement labs are hard to discover. From the late 1980s to 1998 just four meth labs were found in New York. Since then, there have been more than 200 raided. In April 2004, state police uncovered a meth lab in Groton when investigating a child welfare issue. State and federal officials have said Tioga County ranks as the state's hottest spot for meth manufacturing.

With that growing demand and production comes another issue - growing pollution.

According to federal officials, the chemical cocktail that produces meth leaves five to seven pounds of toxic waste for every pound of the drug created. These byproducts have been found in carpets, on walls, and even on clothes and toys. Since meth labs like to keep things hush, large quantities of these deadly chemicals get poured down sink drains, flushed, buried in yards or tossed on the side of area roads. Like 46 other states, New York has no law requiring owners of rental properties be notified their units may be contaminated.

What's more, with so many recipes and so many byproducts, there's not even a uniform standard for how to clean it all up to make sure it's safe. Tioga County Sheriff Gary Howard warned a House panel last March that meth was “leaving behind a virtual toxic dump of chemicals.”

When Howard made those comments, he was speaking in support of a bill by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert that takes aim at the environmental issues tied to the meth explosion. In the Bill (HR 798) Boehlert, the Republican chairman of the House Science Committee, calls on the Environmental Protection to establish voluntary guidelines for the cleanup of former meth labs. The bill, cosponsored by local Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey and 54 other House members, directs EPA to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to research the health effects of the labs and study the long-term effects on building residents. The bill includes $12 million of the EPA and $6 million for the institute over four years to get the job done.

The good news is the House passed Boehlert's bill in late December amid its late-session crush to close down and get members home for the holidays.

But the work isn't done yet.

The bill has been referred to the Senate, where Oregon Republican Gordon Smith has his own version of the law. Boehlert spokesman Joe Pouliot said Thursday the Senate is expected to move on the bill soon after it returns to session next week.

That would be the best news of all.

There is a wide range of meth-related bills awaiting action in Congress. From money for education and law enforcement to an effort to reclassify some over-the-counter medicines with pseudoephedrine, a key meth ingredient, so they require ID to buy, they all deserve full debate and consideration. But the environmental and health dangers presented by meth production - not just to makers and users, but to neighbors and future residents who may have never gambled with illegal narcotics - makes it essential that clear and uniform cleanup and health safety standards be established. If it will take up to four years for EPA to research and set these standards, those four years must start as soon as possible.




Originally published January 20, 2006

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