Meth May Become
Unaffordable
Gary Gerard,
dumbhoosier.com
Well, the whole meth problem might have just become a little
more
interesting.
Seems the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, as part
of its
upcoming budget, will no longer fund a portion of the
cleanup of meth
labs.
Niki Crawford, who heads the meth suppression unit for the
Indiana
State Police explained that meth cleanup comes in two stages
– all of
which currently is handled by ISP.
First is the actual cleanup of lab sites, which is handled
by Indiana
State Police Clandestine Lab Teams. Second is the disposal
of items
removed from the labs.
Crawford said currently all those costs are incurred by the
state
through federal DEA grants. But last week the DEA informed
states that
it would no longer be funding the disposal portion.
The disposal portion amounted to $600,000 last year,
Crawford said. ISP
has been working since last week to find replacement funds.
“We are doing everything we can not to put the bill back on
local
governments, but we also not the final decision makers,”
Crawford said.
ISP has enough money to keep the program going for the next
few months.
After that, if replacement funds aren’t found, counties will
likely be
on the hook for those costs.
So for now, and in the short term, things will be just fine,
but
Kosciusko County Sheriff Rocky Goshert and other sheriff’s
around the
state are more than a little concerned about what lies
ahead.
“I’m kind of on pins and needles,” Goshert said Thursday.
The ISP reported a total of 1,395 meth lab busts in
Indiana last
year. Based on the $600,000 figure, the disposal cost per
lab comes out
to around $430.
Kosciusko County’s 85 meth labs would have cost the us
$36,500 if not
for the DEA money.
But this could be the tip of the iceberg. So far DEA has
only cut funds
for disposal and is still paying for cleanups.
But with the federal government essentially broke, it
doesn’t take a
taro card reader to presuppose that at some point the feds
are going to
get out of the meth lab cleanup business all together.
Indiana State Police records show the cost to clean up a lab
varies
widely – from $2,500 to more than $20,000 – depending on the
size of
the lab and amount of chemicals present. Cleanup of 85 labs
could cost
the county anywhere from $212,500 to $1.7 million.
Those are scary numbers for county government.
“I’m afraid of what’s coming. I’m kind of at a loss to what
we’d do if
they cut anymore,” Goshert said. “Obviously, you can’t just
leave it.
You have to clean it up. We don’t have people trained for
that right
now.”
Goshert said training is complicated and the cleanup process
is
“time-consuming and extremely expensive.”
Goshert said if the totality of meth cleanup costs fall to
the county,
it would be a budget buster.
Coupled with a state mandate that class D felony offenders
be kept in
county jails, Goshert has deep budget concerns looking
forward.
“I just don’t know what we’d do,” he said.
And our Indiana legislature, in its infinite wisdom,
recently passed up
an opportunity to drop the number of meth labs to single
digits.
They could have made PSE, the key ingredient in meth
available by
prescription only. Instead, they opted for a law to track
PSE sales
electronically.
Ironically, one of the arguments by tracking proponents is
that with a
tracking system in place, cops would bust MORE meth labs.
And that’s absolutely true.
After Kentucky initiated its tracking system meth labs busts
went up
248% in two and a half years.
Trust me. That’s not because enforcement is so much more
efficient.
It’s because meth cookers figure out how to easily subvert
the tracking
system. They get all the PSE they want and the number of
labs goes way
up. Kentucky is known in meth circles as “smurfer haven” – a
“smurfer’
being a person who buys PSE for a meth cook.
So, woo hoo! Let’s put tracking in place in Indiana! Great
plan! More
meth labs! If Indiana has a similar experience to
Kentucky’s, by 2013,
we’ll be up to 210 meth lab busts.
Compare that to results in places six months after making
PSE a
prescription drug:
Mississippi – 68 percent drop in meth labs.
Oregon – 72 percent drop in meth labs.
Why in the name of all that is holy would lawmakers want to
enact
legislation that will – without question – give the state
more meth
labs? Shouldn’t the goal be NO meth labs?
Guess not. But wait!
Maybe now, things are different. Now, there’s an
argument that
might break through.
So far, all the evidence of the meth scourge – dead babies,
sick
children, dead moms and dads, houses exploding or burning
down, meth
cookers taking helicopter rides to burn units, homes turned
into toxic
waste sites, addiction, jails packed, lives shattered,
families torn
apart – hasn’t made an impact on our fearless, intrepid
lawmakers
But maybe this argument will.
Money.
It was all good fun when the feds were footing the bill for
all those
meth lab cleanups. No worries. But if the feds stop paying,
state and
local law enforcement budgets will be decimated.
See, now it’s not just about doing the right thing for
public
health and safety. It’s not just about saving children and
families.
Now it’s about money.
If our county busts 200 labs a year and has to pay for all
the cleanup,
the bill would range from $500,000 to $4 million.
Hey, maybe the drug companies will offer to pay for the
cleanup costs
the same way they offered – good corporate citizens that
they are – to
pay for the tracking system.
Seriously people, ponying up for a tracking system was just
good
business for the drug companies.
The United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board
reports that
pseudoephedrine imports into the U.S. rose from 842,000
pounds in 2005
to more than 1.43 million pounds in 2010. It almost doubled
even as
states nationwide made PSE harder to buy.
Wow, that’s a lot of runny noses. Either that or the fact
that –
estimates vary – 50 percent to 80 percent of the stuff winds
up in meth
labs.
Whatever.
What’s it going to take lawmakers? How high does the body
count have to
be? How many jails have to be filled? How many counties have
to go
bankrupt before you people pull your heads out of ... ah,
the sand?
Maybe it’s too late for this legislative session. Maybe not.
But it’s a simple proposition. Let’s get this right and
we’ll move on.
End the meth scourge. Make PSE prescription only. No PSE. No
meth labs.
Archives
|
