Law would track meth cooks

Sharon Heine and Ross Wigney want to know when a meth cook moves into their rural neighborhood east of Snohomish, and the state may help them find out.

A proposed law would require felons convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine to tell the sheriff’s department their new address when they move into Snohomish County. Neighbors would be notified.

“Meth cooks can set up across the street from you, and you don’t know,” said Heine, who lives in the Three Lakes area. “There has not been a case like that out here, and I want to prevent it.”

Under HB 3004, neighbors would be told of a felon drug maker’s residence much the same way that communities are notified when convicted sex offenders move in, Sheriff Rick Bart said. Data on meth cooks would be available online, just like the sex offender registry.

“I consider them as bad as sex predators,” Bart said. “They go into a community and poison it. We’ll see if this will stop them from moving from neighborhood to neighborhood.”

Wigney, who said his daughter is a recovering meth addict, cleans up tainted drug-making sites for a living and does meth education on the side through a nonprofit agency.

“When a meth lab sets up, it brings with it a wave of crime. The neighbors should be told,” he said.

Bart said he wants the law “to keep tabs on the convicted meth cooks. This sends a message to them that you can’t hide.”

The sheriff said his department would pay the full costs of the pilot program, which runs until July 1, 2007. He gave no price, but said it would not cost much to create a Web site and hold community meetings. With operating labs declining countywide, he predicted the registry could contain as few as 20 names.

The law doesn’t address the shift in the meth business that has come with the drug’s growing popularity. Most of the meth now sold here no longer comes from what police call “Beavis and Butthead” labs run by locals. Instead, the drugs are produced by Latin American drug organizations in superlabs in Mexico and the southwestern United States.

“We will always struggle with out-of-state drug trafficking, but I can sure control the guys making drugs in this county,” Bart said.

The law would be significant if it pre-empts illicit activity, Wigney said.

“Twenty labs – can you imagine how much pain and crime and pollution that can create?” he said.

Heine raised the issue with state Reps. Kirk Pearson, R-Monroe, and John Lovick, D-Mill Creek. They introduced the bill.

“Anything we can do to fight meth, we should do,” Lovick said. “I don’t think anything is too far.”

Pearson said it is as an issue of public safety. “We’ll see if it works, we’ll see if people like it, and we’ll see if it helps law enforcement,” he said.

The House Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee passed the bill on Thursday. Rep. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, was the lone dissenter.

“Meth is a threat. Personally, I don’t think it’s on the same level as one convicted of a sex offense or kidnapping offense,” she said.

She also worried what an overzealous person might do with the information. Two convicted sex offenders were murdered in Bellingham by a man who told police he had tracked them using the public registry.

Heine said the public deserves the opportunity to protect itself.

“We should not allow that fear to control us and to prevent us from trying,” she said. “If we can prove ourselves here, we have the opportunity to teach the world a lesson.”

Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.

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