Police officers' chemical exposures in a drug vault

Details

• Personal Author:
  Durgam, Srinivas ; Fent, Kenneth W. ; Gibbins, John D. ; Niemeier, Maureen T. ; Smith J ; West C
• Description:
  When the employees at a police department in Kentucky expressed concern about potential exposures and health effects when working in the vault used to store drug evidence, their agency contacted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to request a Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE). Two drug-vault employees (who were assigned to another department before the evaluation) reported experiencing symptoms they believed were related to their work in the vault. The symptoms reported by the employees included nose bleeds, respiratory problems, skin rashes, "memory fog", fatigue, anxiety, vision problems, burning eyes, and facial twitching. Drug-vault employees' duties at the department included receiving, storing, and retrieving drug evidence; transporting drug evidence; maintaining inventory; and retrieving evidence for disposal. Prior to the NIOSH HHE, the employees inventoried evidence while inside the vault. However, at the time of the evaluation, they began using carts to bring the evidence to the office area for inventory (to limit their time in the vault). Employees could spend several hours in the vault each day, and were potentially exposed to drug particles, mold from marijuana plants, volatile chemicals used in the manufacture of the drugs, and volatile chemicals used to mask the odor of the drugs. Drugs in the vault included marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and oxycodone. As part of the evaluation, NIOSH provided a list of recommendations to the police department to improve the overall work conditions in the drug vault and adjacent areas. This list is summarized below and may be applicable to other police departments. These recommendations are based on the hierarchy of controls approach that groups actions by their likely effectiveness in reducing or removing hazards. Generally, elimination, substitution, and engineering controls are more effective than administrative controls and PPE. Often, a combination of different types of controls is necessary to fully protect employees. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Air Pollution, Indoor Confined Spaces Environmental Health Environmental Monitoring Fungi Hazardous Substances Health Care Facilities Workforce And Services Law Enforcement Narcotics Nervous System Occupational Health Personal Protective Equipment Safety Staff Development Ventilation

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• Keywords:
  Air-contamination Air-sampling Author Keywords: HETA 2010-0017-3133 Confined-spaces Drugs Exposure-assessment Health-hazards Indoor-environmental-quality Inorganic-acids Law-enforcement Law-enforcement-workers Medical-monitoring Medical-screening Molds Neurological-reactions Odor-control Odors Organic-compounds Personal-protective-equipment Physiological-effects Police-officers Sampling Storage-facilities Terpene-compounds Training Ventilation-systems Volatiles Work-practices

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• ISSN:
  1555-998X
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Kentucky ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies ; DART - Division of Applied Research and Technology
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  16-21
• Volume:
  10
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20040386
• Citation:
  Evid Technol Mag 2012 Jan-Feb; 10(1):16-21
• CAS Registry Number:
  (-)-Oxycodone (CAS RN 76-42-6) ; Methamphetamine (CAS RN 537-46-2)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2012
• NORA Priority Area:
  Healthcare and Social Assistance
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  Evidence Technology Magazine
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:be19f2029ce1f64635f543ad8f3bc625d063f039d2a74268f2fbc7359c5436431655430ff8972e4badfcf8fffc292becc359f062e37eade422027710d4b9def3
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/193283/cdc_193283_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.54 MB ]