Gordon Legislation To Aid Fight Against Meth Abuse
June 23, 2004, WASHINGTON, D.C. – Alarmed at the toxic mess created by methamphetamine production, U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon has introduced federal legislation designed to help communities more thoroughly clean the sites where meth labs are found.
“It’s hard to imagine how toxic and dangerous these labs are until you hear about one blowing up,” Gordon said. “These meth cooks are putting not only themselves at risk of injury or death, but they are also risking the lives of their children and neighbors. And the collateral damage left behind is enormous.
“Cleaning one of these sites is a huge task, and unfortunately there are no set guidelines or standards for this procedure. There isn’t even a standard on what is clean.”
Gordon is the ranking member of the House Science Committee, which has jurisdictional oversight over all civilian research and development programs of the federal government.
The congressman recently held a roundtable discussion with local, state and federal officials at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin to identify key steps that Congress can take to assist communities in their fight against meth use and production.
“Mobile meth labs have been found in apartments, houses, hotel rooms, sheds and even in the trunks of automobiles,” Gordon said. “The highly volatile chemicals used to make the drug can be extraordinarily dangerous.
“Explosions at these clandestine labs have hurt a lot of people over the years. Methamphetamine production is a scourge that endangers lives in all kinds of ways.”
Gordon’s legislation, HR 4636, focuses on procedures and standards needed to decontaminate a site where a meth lab is found. According to the DEA, 75 percent of meth labs discovered in the Southeast are found in Tennessee.
Currently the Drug Enforcement Administration disposes of the chemicals found at the site, but doesn’t address other environmental factors such as potential groundwater contamination or leftover chemical residue.
“Because we don’t necessarily know what the parameters of a clean site should be, people who use those same facilities afterwards may still be exposed to toxins and contaminants,” Gordon explained. “My legislation will have the scientific community develop those standards and procedures so we can better protect the public.”
Gordon’s bill requires former lab sites that have undergone an environmental clean-up to be posted via an Internet-accessible database. And it directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to support a research program to develop methamphetamine lab detection technologies, with an emphasis on field test kits.
“Tennessee is facing a real problem with methamphetamine abuse,” Gordon said. “I want to identify key areas where better science and technology might be developed to help support local efforts in investigating, prosecuting, remediating and treating meth abuse and production.”
