Pubdate: Fri, 19 Aug 2005
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2005 The Charlotte Observer
Contact:  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Kate Zernike, New York Times

BUSH BOLSTERS BATTLE ON METH

Gonzales, Other Top Officials Sent To Show Seriousness Of Threat

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Seeking to defuse a growing confrontation with members 
of Congress and local officials over drug policy, the Bush administration 
dispatched the attorney general and two other top officials here on 
Thursday to pledge that the government is committed to battling 
methamphetamine.

"You can tell President Bush considers it a serious threat that he had 
three of his Cabinet members here today," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales 
said in a speech to judges, anti-drug advocates, and graduates at a drug 
court here. The administration also pledged to make $16.2 million available 
in grants for treatment.

Gonzales was joined in Nashville by the director of the White House Office 
of Drug Control Policy, John Walters, and Health and Human Services 
Secretary Mike Leavitt.

For years the White House has focused the anti-drug strategy on marijuana, 
arguing that it is the most widely used drug, particularly among high 
school students, and can be a gateway to more serious drug use.

Officials have continued to emphasize that in recent months, even as law 
enforcement officials across the country have pleaded for more help 
fighting methamphetamine, a drug made using chemicals commonly found in 
cold medicine or on farms.

But members of Congress from both parties and local officials have argued 
that meth, which is highly addictive, is the real problem. They argue that 
the administration has virtually ignored the problem.

The administration sparked a political furor when officials with the drug 
policy office seemed to downplay the results of a National Association of 
Counties survey, released in early July, in which 500 local law enforcement 
officials nationwide called meth their No. 1 scourge.

When administration officials doubted the officials' characterization of 
meth as an epidemic, the 100-member bipartisan Meth Caucus in Congress, as 
well as the rural caucus and members of districts hard hit by the drug sent 
angry letters.

The administration officials said they would support efforts to place 
limits on individual sales of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine that is 
the key ingredient in methamphetamine, and to monitor more closely 
importation of that ingredient.
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