Pubdate: Wed, 27 Jul 2005
Source: Claremore Daily Progress, The (OK)
Copyright: 2005, The Claremore Daily Progress
Contact:  http://www.claremoreprogress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2044
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

OUR BETTER METH LAW

U. S. Senator Tom Coburn was backing views of Oklahoma crime fighters 
including Claremore Police Chief Mickey Perry in challenging a proposed 
federal law that would replace Oklahoma's powerful and effective legal tool 
against illegal methamphetamines.

Former narcotics undercover agent Perry praised the state law as "highly 
effective" in erasing "meth labs," that used over-the-counter drugs to 
manufacture highly-addictive, dangerous and illegal drugs.

Meth and crack cocaine are commonly considered the most lethal of all 
addictive chemical substances in the underworld. One usage, it generally 
believed, results in life-long, hard-to-cure addiction. Lives by the 
millions have been wrecked by these made-from-chemical killers. Moments of 
ecstasy quickly resolve into stark madness from which users are never cured 
but, with tough restraint, are "recovering addicts."

While Perry and Scott Rowland, the knowledgeable lawyer for the state 
Bureau of Narcotics, both praise Congress for attempting to nationally 
apply the innovative, landmark Oklahoma law they fear "unintended 
consequences" by part of the law that pre-empts the effective state statute.

Perry and Rowland agree that "a national uniform standard" of controlling 
medicines necessary to manufacture meth is needed but the federal law. 
Rowland says federal laws should not pre-empt "the ability of Oklahoma 
lawmakers and the governor to continue protecting Oklahoma citizens."

Rowland notes that after the federal Meth Control Act of 1996 was passed, 
lab seizure in Oklahoma doubled from "125 in 1996 to 241 in 1997." It was 
amended in 2000 then seizures "jumped from 946 to 1,191.

Perry credits the self-effacing lawyer Rowland with virtually writing HB 
2176, the bill that Oklahoma lawmakers enacted and that the now pending 
federal legislation duplicates. Unfortunately, it adds the unsavory part 
that would stop state's from enacting their own laws.

Without HB 2176, Rowland says "all available evidence thus suggests we 
would now be experiencing yet another record year for meth lab seizures 
rather than an 80-90 percent reduction."

Coburn and two other senators last week derailed Senate action on the 
"combat Meth Act of 2005 championed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. 
While she feared the powerful pharmaceutical lobby sparked opposition, 
Perry said Coburn was guided by Oklahoma and Missouri state-level agents 
who operate under similar laws.

While the Act include large appropriations for hiring more prosecutors and 
federal agents and generally could trigger a uniform nationwide fight to 
shuttered meth labs.

Rowland wrote boldly that "once enacted, the federal legislation could be 
altered at the will of Congress, and it has been my experience that the 
influence of pharmaceutical giants is much more pronounced at the federal 
level than we experienced at the state level."

In its final days before the traditional August recess, the senate 
subcommittee should rethink and rewrite that damaging part of the Combat 
Met Act that silences the very effective statutes written by alert state 
legislatures and effectively enforced by local officers.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom