The Associated Press
RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) - The Vermont State Police and a number of other state agencies are helping put together a training program to let train emergency workers about the dangers of methamphetamine.
The drug is cheap, addictive and easy to make from legal ingredients.
It also carries with it the dangers of an exploding lab, poisonous gas or chemical contamination from the production process.
That’s why the liquor control commission, the health department and the police academy are working with the state police to recognize the signs and dangers of methamphetamine labs.
“It’s an untraditional type program,” said John D’Esposito, an investigator with the Vermont Department of Liquor Control, Education, Licensing and Enforcement, at the first training, held last month in Rutland.
“This is a first responders safety piece for college security personnel, firefighters, rescue personnel. We should call it ‘Be Safe,”’ he said.
The timing and location of the training were prompted by the June arrest of two Arkansas men accused of setting up the first meth lab in the state in years, according to Cynthia Taylor-Patch, training coordinator for the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council.
“A lot of the time these labs are discovered because they explode,” Taylor-Patch said. “We haven’t had any meth labs discovered in years and now there’s been two discovered in Rutland County in the last year.”
Taylor-Patch said the state hoped to prevent problems that have plagued Western states.
“It’s a huge problem nationally and we’ve been sort of sheltered here, but we’re perfect territory, unfortunately, because we’re a rural state,” she said.
Regardless of where training programs go, Detective Michael Smith of the Vermont State Police, said methamphetamine production uses easily available, and potentially dangerous, chemicals.
Smith hammered home the dangers inherent in methamphetamine labs with photos of chemical contaminants and exploded buildings at the training, counseling the first responders to resist instincts to go in and help.
“All it really takes to make meth is a bowl, a grinder and a heat source,” he said, recalling a training class he took where two boxes of Sudafed were transformed into $300 worth of methamphetamines. “It’s very easy to make. Anything you need to make meth is legally available.