Pubdate: Wed, 06 Jul 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Kate Zernike
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

OFFICIALS ACROSS U.S. DESCRIBE DRUG WOES

Local officials from across the country yesterday declared 
methamphetamine the nation's leading law enforcement scourge - a more 
insidious drug problem than cocaine - and blamed it for crowding 
jails and fueling increases in theft and violence, as well as for a 
host of 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 domestic 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 the Bush 
administration had focused its drug-fighting efforts too much on 
marijuana and not enough on methamphetamine.

"This is a national problem that requires national leadership," 
Angelo Kyle, the president of the association and a member of the 
Board of Commissioners in Lake County, Ill., north of Chicago, said 
at a news conference in Washington that was called to draw attention 
to the problem.

While methamphetamine has begun to move into some cities, it has 
particularly devastated rural areas in the last several years. It is 
cheap and easy to make using chemicals commonly found in cold 
medicine or on farms, and makeshift production laboratories have 
sprung up in barns and houses. Officials said yesterday that they had 
even discovered small portable laboratories in suitcases.

The ingredients are highly toxic and highly flammable, often 
resulting in serious explosions. And the drug itself, which is 
smoked, inhaled or injected, is extremely addictive, producing a high 
that lasts several hours and leading to binges that often last days 
or even weeks.

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

Fifty-eight percent said methamphetamine was their largest drug 
problem. Nineteen percent said cocaine was, 17 percent said marijuana 
and 3 percent said heroin.

The problem is seen as particularly bad in the Southwest, where 76 
percent of counties surveyed said methamphetamine was their largest 
drug problem; in the Pacific Northwest, where 75 percent of those 
surveyed said it was; and in the Upper Midwest, where 67 percent of 
county officials declared methamphetamine their worst drug problem.

Seventy percent of counties reported increases in robberies and 
burglaries because of methamphetamine; 62 percent reported increases 
in domestic violence; 53 percent reported an increase in assaults; 
and 27 reported an increase in identity theft.

Half the counties surveyed said one in five inmates were in jail 
because of methamphetamine crimes. Many counties reported that half 
their jail populations were incarcerated because of methamphetamine.

The officials said that reports of child abuse had increased as well, 
with many children neglected while their parents binged and then 
slept off the high for several days.

"Meth abuse is ruining lives and families and filling our jails," 
said Bill Hansell, president-elect of the association and a 
commissioner from Umatilla County, Ore., which has led that state in 
laboratory seizures.

The officials called yesterday for the restoration of the federal 
Justice Assistance Program, the $804 million program that helped 
finance drug-fighting efforts between different jurisdictions. "With 
the elimination of that program, that really stifles us from being 
able to combat this epidemic drug," Mr. Kyle said.

The officials also called for more money for treatment and said the 
Bush administration should shift its antidrug efforts, which have 
emphasized preventing marijuana use among teenagers.

"We're not saying that that's misplaced or that they shouldn't be 
doing this," said Larry Naake, executive director of the association, 
"but we think that there is now an epidemic that needs to get their 
attention because it's just as serious, if not more serious, because 
of the overall consequences of it."
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