Federal lawmakers have passed a bill that will set minimum standards for cleaning up methamphetamine labs. The chemicals used to make meth are toxic and the residues can affect the health of residents who might later occupy a home or apartment where the drug was manufactured.
Tennessee already has a state-wide standard of what it means to have a ‘clean’ meth site, established as part of the Meth-Free Tennessee Act of 2005. That bill also put certain cold medicines used in making meth behind pharmacy counters.
Tommy Farmer directs the state’s Meth Task Force which assists law enforcement in combating the drug. He says the state started finding labs in the mid-1990s, but only a small fraction of those were cleaned.
“There were lab seizures seized, but yet it was prior to meth free Tennessee and there were no clean up standards or quarantine standards. Law enforcement had no right or we had no ability to force a remediation of the property.”
The federal bill, however, doesn’t force states to clean up sites. Congressman Bart Gordon sponsored the measure to create uniform standards and says it will also encourage the development of meth detection equipment. The Murfreesboro democrat has been working on the bill since 2004.
Tennessee is fifth in the nation for number of meth labs found last year. 669 labs or dump sites were seized, down from nearly 1-thousand in 2005.
Representative Gordon was also able to secure 1-point-1-million dollars to combat meth use in the state. The Meth Task force will receive 423-thousand dollars of that funding.
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