State plans crackdown on rural meth lab operations

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004 | 9:39 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state attorney general's office said today it will propose tougher laws to fight methamphetamine manufacturing labs that are expanding into rural Nevada.

Gerald Gardner, chief of the criminal division, said Las Vegas and Reno have done a "good job" in cracking down on the labs but now they are "proliferating" into rural homes, trailers and motel rooms.

The announcement was made at a press conference in Reno where John Walters, director of the National Drug Control Policy, revealed there would be $725,000 in federal grants going to eight anti-drug coalitions in rural Nevada.

The money is part of $21.9 million nationally going to 227 communities in 46 states and is aimed at preventing and reducing drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse among the young.

Gardner said the attorney general's office has asked for a bill to be drafted for the 2003 Legislature so that those who cook methamphetamine could be charged with murder if a child dies as a result of such an operation or if a firefighter or police officer is killed when responding to a call about a meth lab.

The labs use toxic chemicals and sometimes explode.

At present, he said the prosecution "at best" could get a voluntary manslaughter conviction.

Another bill draft request would raise the penalty in cases in which a meth lab explodes and injures responding firefighters and police. The penalty is three to 20 years in prison but Gardner said the attorney general wants to double the sentence.

A third proposed change would give prosecutors a new law to charge those who produce methamphetamine with a felony if children are exposed to the substance.

Gardner said in Arizona one-third of the children who had been exposed to the meth manufacturing process tested positive for methamphetamine.