Pubdate: Wed, 06 Jul 2005
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Kate Zernike, New York Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

COUNTIES SEE METH THREAT GAIN INTENSITY

Federal Emphasis On Terror Said To Overlook Nationwide Explosion

Local officials from across the country declared methamphetamine the 
nation's leading law-enforcement scourge on Tuesday, blaming it for 
crowding jails and fueling theft and violence, as well as social welfare 
problems.

Officials from the National Association of Counties, releasing results from 
a survey of 500 local officials nationwide, argued that Washington's focus 
on terrorism and homeland security had diverted money and attention from 
the methamphetamine problem in the states.

They pleaded with lawmakers to restore financing for an $804 million 
drug-fighting program that the group said had been proposed for elimination 
in the 2006 federal budget, and said that the Bush administration had 
focused its drug-fighting efforts too much on marijuana and not enough on 
methamphetamine.

Of 500 law-enforcement agencies in 45 states that responded to the survey, 
87 percent reported increases in methamphetamine-related arrests in the 
last three years, and 62 percent reported increases in lab seizures.

Fifty-eight percent said methamphetamine was their largest drug problem.

Half the counties surveyed said that one in five inmates are in jail 
because of methamphetamine-related crimes. Many counties reported that more 
than half their jail populations are incarcerated because of the drug.
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