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More drug-war privatization woes

Submitted August 13, 2005 - 10:05 pm by Bill Conroy
More evidence of the potential problems with using private contractors in the war on drugs surfaces in a story that appeared today in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review.

Authorities are trying to determine whether a contractor hired by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration violated state environmental laws by improperly disposing of toxic waste seized from a methamphetamine lab, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said Friday.

DEA agents, police, firefighters and hazardous materials crews surrounded the firm's warehouse in Windgap for several hours Wednesday until the Attorney General's Office secured a warrant to search 15 black garbage bags they found in a Dumpster at the Windgap Industrial Park.

The firm, Nashville-based Ferguson Harbour, denied any wrongdoing yesterday.

... The DEA uses Ferguson Harbour's warehouse to dispose of waste from dismantled meth labs from across the Midwest and East Coast, Pittsburgh Hazardous Materials Unit Chief Russell Young said Wednesday.

Law enforcement sources told Narco News that seized marijuana also is taken to private facilities for incineration, but stress that DEA agents handle the transportation and security for those operations.

The DEA's recent announcement that it is now seeking commercial firms to "load, transport and unload 'multi-ton' shipments of seized marijuana en route to destruction" is not only a change of policy for DEA, as law enforcement sources point out, but it takes the drug-war privatization push to a whole new level that promises to bring us even more scandals down the road.

More from the Tribune-Review:

... The chemicals used to make methamphetamine are combustible when mixed together and also can cause pollution if they seep into the ground.

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