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secondary meth exposure from a public space … those aren’t typically presenting to emergency departments,” Hill said, noting people may feel some symptoms but usually not severe enough that they go to the emergency room.

Physical symptoms of meth can include increased heart rate, eye irritation if there is chemical exposure in the air and a slight cough, Hill said. Psychological impacts may include paranoia, having an out-of-body experience and hallucinations.

Meth exposure could also cause increased jitteriness, irritability, fatigue, moodiness, a skin rash from irritation or trouble sleeping, said Karin Pacheco, an allergist in the Division of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at National Jewish Health.

“But people don’t spend that much time in a bathroom,” she said. “So your actual exposure would be fairly low.”

Pacheco said the body breaks down methamphetamine quickly, so even if symptoms were to arise due to secondhand exposure, they would likely reside in one or two hours.

According to Boulder County’s website, there is a low probability of secondary exposure to methcontaminated surfaces causing someone to experience symptoms, “especially in relation to exposure in a public setting.” roughout his 10 years of working in the Denver area, Hill has never seen a patient have a large symptomatic exposure from secondary meth exposure.

Arapahoe County Public Health also said health risks to the general public are considered low.

“ ey may get a little bit,” he said, explaining a person may feel some symptoms if someone was smoking meth near them. “But as far as causing, like, acute psychosis and that kind of stu , that’s extremely uncommon.”

Contamination in restrooms and vents

When it comes to meth contamination that has been detected in the exhaust vents and restrooms of libraries, Hill thinks the health risk is low.

“I seriously doubt someone would be symptomatic related to exhaust vent residue in an exhaust vent. It certainly means that, yes, there was methamphetamine smoked in there, but I think the public health risk is fairly low on that,” he said. “I’ve never seen one (patient), where they were just in a public bathroom, get exposure (and) having true symptoms from that.”

Pacheco agreed that the con- tamination in air vents is likely from people smoking it, as it would be unlikely for someone to have time to cook meth in a public restroom. the city in the last week or two, so I don’t think it’s a … new thing that we’re seeing.”

Mark Stephenson, a retired hazardous materials emergency response team chief at Aurora Fire Rescue, added that surface contamination could arise from methamphetamine sitting or spilling on a surface.

Pacheco said a person would probably be more likely to get secondhand exposure from touching a surface than from breathing the air in a contaminated restroom. If meth has been smoked in a space, the aerosols can settle on surfaces.

Hill explained that if there was a large amount of methamphetamine contamination on a surface and a person was to touch their hands to the surface and then eat something, they might get symptomatic from that.

“You could get some secondary effects from that,” Hill said. “I wouldn’t expect it to be a long-term issue for someone unless they’re really frequently exposed to it, over and over and over again, like if they’re living at an apartment with someone who’s using it.

Pacheco pointed out that children might touch many surfaces in a public bathroom, putting them at a greater risk. In addition, the same dose would a ect a child more than an adult because of their size.

He noted he hasn’t seen an uptick in meth recently, though it is “a huge problem.”

“It’s one of the highest used illicit drugs we have in the metro area. I see it several times a day, methamphetamine psychosis,” Hill said.

Pacheco agreed that the new ndings represent the high levels of meth use in society, which she said has been an ongoing problem for years.

“It’s like many things: if you don’t know what to look for, it isn’t there,” she said. “And then if you start to look for it, suddenly it’s everywhere. But I don’t think this is a di erence in use, right? It’s a di erence in detection.”

Now what?

Regarding the ongoing conversation on how to best mitigate meth usage in public spaces and prevent a public space that’s been cleaned from getting contaminated again, Hill said he’s unsure of how to safely do that.

“I don’t know of anybody that has any kind of, like a smoke detector for meth or if someone’s smoking it then it alerts the crew or something — I’ve never seen anything like that, so I don’t know how you protect your space,” Hill said.

When asked if he has an opinion on whether public spaces and libraries should be doing regular testing for meth contamination, Hill said he doesn’t have enough information to draw an opinion about the risk.

He thinks routine screenings and cleanings of public spaces would be worthwhile if public health experts determined there was a signi cant risk of secondary contamination to the public.