Pubdate: Tue, 02 Aug 2005
Source: Winston-Salem Journal (NC)
Copyright: 2005 Piedmont Publishing Co. Inc.
Contact:  http://www.journalnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/504
Note: The Journal does not publish letters from writers outside its daily 
home delivery circulation area
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Mark+Souder
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

NATIONAL STRATEGY NEEDED

Winston-Salem Journal Sheriff Mark Shook of Watauga County and Chief Don 
Owens of Titusville, Pa., could almost have traded scripts as they 
testified about the dangers of methamphetamine before a congressional 
subcommittee last week. That's because in Northwest North Carolina, in 
western Pennsylvania and at a thousand heartbroken points in between, meth 
is destroying lives and threatening children. Members of Congress, 
including Reps. Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry, are right to be pushing 
for ways to combat this deadly, highly addictive drug. A national strategy 
is needed.

"It's a community problem, it is not a law-enforcement problem because 
everyone in the community has had to deal with it," Shook told the House 
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

Owens put it simply but well: "Rural America needs help."

Unfortunately, the fight against meth, like so many other righteous fights, 
gets dragged down in politics. In North Carolina, Attorney General Roy 
Cooper and others have made strong efforts to fight the drug. A bill that 
would limits sales of pseudoephedrine, which is found in over-the-counter 
medications and can be ground into a powder to make meth, is making its way 
through the state legislature despite the opposition of some lobbyists.

Nationally, federal drug officials aren't moving fast enough to fight the 
fast growing problem of meth. Officials from the Office of National Drug 
Control Policy and the Drug Enforcement Agency who testified last week 
acknowledged that meth is a problem, but their answers and solutions did 
not satisfy lawmakers. "We see no national coordinated methamphetamine 
strategy," said Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana.

Several bills dealing with meth are slowly make their way through Congress, 
including one by McHenry that would raise punishment levels in federal 
court for those who produce or traffic in meth in the presence of children. 
Other bills would tackle other aspects of the problem, including tightly 
regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine.

But more national strategy is needed. For starters, federal officials 
should take this problem more seriously by convening a national conference 
of law-enforcement officers who deal with meth. The officers could emerge 
from such a meeting with a battle plan.

The alternative is more horror stories - ones about children being exposed 
to the hazards of meth being made in their homes and of deputies and 
firefighters being injured as they respond to explosions at these crude 
meth labs. The alternative is prisons and social-welfare systems becoming 
even more overloaded.

Given the alternatives, a national strategy is the only way to go. 
Officials should quickly produce one.
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MAP posted-by: Beth