House passes meth-lab crackdown bill

Thursday, Sept. 28, 2000 | 10:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The House on Wednesday passed a bill aimed at cracking down on the spread of the drug methamphetamine.

The legislation funnels $15 million to battling the drug in "high-intensity" areas and $20 million for the Drug Enforcement Agency to reimburse state and local authorities for cleaning up seized meth labs.

The bill passed by a 394-25 vote. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., voted in the majority.

The legislation also allocates $5.5 million for training state and local officers in combating meth production and use; another $9.5 million will be spent on new Drug Enforcement Agency officers and agent positions.

Production of the drug, often concocted in makeshift "meth labs" in people's homes, is growing nationwide. In Clark County, Metro Police officers seized 362 meth labs last year, up from 50 in 1995. Nevada leads the nation in its rate of meth labs seized: in 1998 authorities found 18.8 labs per 100,000 people, 315 total labs, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

The methamphetamine legislation was attached to a larger bill, the Children's Health Act of 2000, which already had been passed by the Senate. The bill passed without a controversial provision that would have banned posting the recipe for the drug on the Internet. Lawmakers stripped that measure from the bill citing First Amendment rights.

The drug is relatively easy to produce by mixing the over-the-counter cold medication pseudoephedrine with other chemicals.