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Meth Labs

Manufacturing meth in a residential setting is a health and safety threat to neighbors and the community (even if it doesn't blow up!)

What are the problems
  • explosion:  tenants at Toledo's Ashland Manor Apartments in Toledo were surprised when an apartment blew up taking 3 other apartments out with it!  ditto-a nursing home in Ashtabula county!
  • exposure to harmful chemicals: 
  • crime magnet:  Meth Labs attract dealers and sometimes retail customers to residential premises.  Not a safe thing.
  • costly for landlords to remediate:  Landlords are forced to hire hazardous waste clean up experts to put their property back in shape.  Costly!

A local health district responsibility?

Ohio’s local health districts have no legal mandate to address meth labs. However, local health departments often serve as contacts and sources of information for concerned residents, fire and EMS-EMA officials, law enforcement agencies, child protection services and even real estate representatives. Often these above-mentioned sources ask the local health department to provide cleanup guidance and/or attest to the safety of re-occupancy of a home or a room where a meth lab operated. Local governmental agencies can address cleanup of these sites under their local building code laws and/or the health department could use their authority to require the cleanup of former meth labs under their public health nuisance laws.

From the attached Ohio Department of Health Fact Sheet (attached below)


  Meth manufacturing in the news
1/5/15  City of Lorain is proposing that "Property owners could be responsible for cleaning up meth labs in Lorain"
The effort to rehab former meth labs is placed clearly on property owners and off the city.  Cleaning up behind a meth lab can be expensive but necessary to safeguard future tenants and adjacent residents.  Here's the story
http://www.wksu.org/news/story/41538

Chillicothe Landlords to Pay for Clean-Up of Meth-Making Tenants
The City Council is setting in motion tough new clean-up fines for landlords who rent to tenants who use or make meth at their rental properties. Dustin Proehl, of the Chillicothe City Council, said, "We want to increase public safety and reduce the risk of contamination lot exposure to clandestine drug labs."  Read all about it

Behind Closed Doors
DEA has a search tool! access the DEA's National Clandestine Laboratory




Notes & Links

Thanks to Kelan Craig for assembling this content

send us your best ideas.



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Meth - A Public Health Issue.pdf
(76k)
Spencer Wells,
Dec 14, 2012, 2:56 AM
v.1
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