Pubdate: Wed, 30 Mar 2005
Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV)
Copyright: 2005 Charleston Daily Mail
Contact:  http://www.dailymail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76
Author: Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH LABS CAUSE RISE IN BURN CASES

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- At a conference on the scourge of methamphetamine, one 
item on the agenda was a tour of a seemingly unlikely place: A burn unit.

Legislators, doctors, social workers and law officials -- including the 
federal government's second highest-ranking drug czar -- walked the halls 
of Vanderbilt University Medical Center regional burn center, where seven 
of the 20 patients were injured by fires and explosions in clandestine meth 
labs.

Vanderbilt doctors told Joseph Keefe, deputy director of the Office on 
National Drug Control Policy, and the other participants that meth cases 
are increasingly common and are driving up state medical expenditures. The 
costs of treating critically injured burn victims typically exceed $10,000 
a day each -- and most meth patients don't have health insurance.

"As bad as this may sound, as a burn doctor I almost wish another drug, one 
less volatile that doesn't regularly explode during the manufacturing 
process, would come down the pike to overtake the popularity of meth," said 
the center's director, Dr. Jeff Guy.

Standing in the doorway of one patient's room Tuesday, Guy told Keefe that 
the man had spent 45 days in a hospital from an October meth blast and "has 
gone out and blown himself up again."

The man, Guy said, has been in the burn unit about 30 days from the second 
injury and his medical costs to date total about $240,000. He said such 
victims often end up collecting disability.

Meth is also hurting innocents, Guy said.

A child was severely burned inside a trailer where someone cooking meth had 
lined interior walls with plastic to trap the odorous, toxic fumes, he said.

"We are seeing kids in meth labs," Guy said.

Keefe described what he saw in the burn unit as "devastating."

Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous 
system and is cooked from over-the-counter ingredients. Tennessee leads the 
nation in meth lab seizures and accounts for three-quarters of such busts 
in the South.

Between October 2003 and August 2004, the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration broke up about 1,200 clandestine meth labs in Tennessee, a 
nearly 400 percent increase from 2000. Also, Tennessee removed an estimated 
750 children from the custody of meth abusers last year, up from 2003.

Ingredients cooked to make the drug include common cold medicines and 
workplace chemicals. Even when labs don't explode, the toxic vapors 
contaminate property and can cause health problems.

Meth users account for 607,000 of the country's 19.5 million drug users in 
2003, according to the most recent statistics from the Office of National 
Drug Control Policy.

Keefe commended Gov. Phil Bredesen and Tennessee lawmakers for approaching 
the drug problem with tougher criminal laws, public education and addiction 
treatment.

Tennessee's new meth-fighting measures, recommendations from a task force 
appointed by Bredesen, would move certain cold medicines that contain 
pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters. It sailed through the Legislature 
on Monday and will be signed into law by Bredesen on Wednesday.

Other states have restricted access to pseudoephedrine, including Oklahoma, 
Iowa, Arkansas and Kentucky. Tennessee lawmakers began pushing for the 
change after Oklahoma saw a big decrease in meth after implementing their 
anti-meth policies.

"I think meth is a scourge and a cancer, particularly in our rural areas 
right now," Bredesen said last month. "I see it most acutely in the several 
hundred children last year that were coming into state custody because they 
are part of meth households. . . . This is terrible stuff."
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MAP posted-by: Beth