Pubdate: Sun, 06 Feb 2005
Source: Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
Copyright: 2005 The Commercial Appeal
Contact:  http://www.commercialappeal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/95
Author: Melissa Nelson, Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LAWMAKERS STRUGGLE WITH METH USE

Ark. Seeks To Cut Labs' Numbers By Regulating A Key Ingredient

LITTLE ROCK - Among issues under debate at the Arkansas Capitol this
legislative session, none have included drama like the fight to rid
the state of methamphetamine.

 From tales of young children with their throats and stomachs
permanently scarred by drinking sulfuric acid used in meth labs, to
stories of toddlers addicted to the drug because it entered their
systems under their fingernails while crawling on meth-contaminated
floors, stories of the drug's devastation fill committee hearings.

	 A bill to lock pseudoephedrine, the drug's key ingredient, behind
pharmacy counters and strictly regulate its distribution seems certain
of passage and is being touted by Arkaansas Atty. Gen. Mike Beebe and
others as a major blow to methamphetamine manufacturers.

But at the same time, legislators are considering rolling back tough
sentences for some first- and second-time meth offenders caught with
smaller quantities of the drug. Advocates of the sentencing changes
say the state simply cannot keep up with a prison population that is
swelling from the methamphetamine epidemic.

"We've got to do something. We can spend $170,000 to keep someone in
prison for eight years, or we can spend $20,000 to send them to rehab
for 12 months. It's as simple as that," said Sen. Jack Critcher,
D-Batesville, who sponsored the sentencing bill.

The Arkansas Sheriffs' Association and the Arkansas Prosecuting
Attorneys Association oppose Critcher's legislation, which passed a
Senate committee last week. The bill would exempt first-or
second-time offenders in possession of less than five grams of the
drug from a law that requires those convicted of making meth with the
intent to distribute it to serve at least 70 percent of their prison
sentence.

Chuck Lange, executive director of the Arkansas Sheriff's Association,
said sheriffs' deputies and police are in a daily war with
methamphetamine manufacturers who often use surveillance cameras and
automatic weapons to protect their labs.

"We've been real fortunate not to have lost a lot of deputies and a
lot of city police," he told a Senate committee.

Fear of violent meth addicts and manufacturers is one reason Arkansas
pharmacists long resisted efforts to lock meth ingredients behind
pharmacy counters, said Sen. Percy Malone, D-Arkadelphia, a sponsor of
the bill to restrict pseudoephedrine.

"We are now putting this street drug of choice in the pharmacy. It is
putting this drug that people are addicted to in the prescription
department," said Malone, a pharmacist himself who began pushing for
the change in 1997.

In committee testimony, representatives of pharmacists groups said
they agreed to support Malone's bill this year after seeing the
results of an Oklahoma law. Ten months after the law took effect, meth
lab seizures in Oklahoma are down more than 80 percent.

But Malone said he fears the drug epidemic could circumvent state
legislators' efforts. He said experts expect a surge of
Mexican-manufactured methamphetamine as states' laws catch up with
domestic manufacturers.

Malone said he began his push for legislation to curb meth after drug
task force members showed him pictures of methamphetamine labs with
baby bottles and pacifiers in them. "The driving force for me was
learning how devastating this is for the children of Arkansas," he
said.

For Critcher, widely considered the Legislature's methamphetamine
expert, his push to legislate the meth epidemic came from running a
grocery store in his tiny northeast Arkansas hometown of Grubbs.

Along with Critcher's bill to exempt first- and second-time meth
manufacturers caught with less than five grams from the 70 percent
law, he also has proposed a bill to make meth offenders sentenced
under the 70 percent law eligible to have their sentences reduced for
good behavior.

Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said
the changes to the law might have a better chance of passing this
session because of growing pressure on the prison system.
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