Pubdate: Fri, 18 Feb 2005
Source: Kansas City Star (MO)
Copyright: 2005 The Kansas City Star
Contact:  http://www.kcstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/221
Author: Richard Espinoza
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH THREAT UNDERSTATED IN KANSAS

Judging by the official numbers, Kansas has made steady progress in
shutting down methamphetamine labs over the past four years.

But those numbers almost certainly understate the meth problem in
Kansas, officials said this week, and the error potentially costs the
state millions of dollars in federal money that could be used to find
and clean up meth labs.

Missouri, on the other hand, keeps strict records that rank the state
first in the number of meth-lab seizures. Those records have made it
easier for Missouri to win $8 million more in federal Midwest High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area awards than Kansas has since 2003.

The number of meth cases does not translate directly into HIDTA
awards, which fund efforts against meth and other drugs, but it help
states show the severity of the problem they are trying to fight.

"We adopt an enforcement strategy that goes to address a threat,"
Midwest HIDTA Director David Barton said. "So the first step is to
assess the threat."

Kansas has trouble assessing its meth threat because, unlike their
Missouri counterparts, police and sheriff's departments that shut down
meth labs there are not legally required to report the cases to the
state agency that collects the data for the federal government.

Records that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation sent to the National
Clandestine Laboratory Database showed 538 meth-lab, dump-site and
meth-equipment seizures in the state last year, putting Kansas at No.
11 in terms of meth lab cases. It was ranked 10th in 2003.

But a study by the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit showed
that only 58 percent of the state's meth lab cases had been reported
to the KBI in 2000.

To report a meth lab for the federal database, the police or sheriff's
department has to fill out a four-page form with details about
evidence, suspects and other data. But in some areas, investigators
don't want to spend the time filling out the form.

"As one sheriff put it," KBI spokesman Kyle Smith said, "if they have
to decide between working another meth lab or filling out four pages
of paperwork, they're going to work another lab, and I can't blame
them for that."

A Missouri law that took effect in 2001 requires law enforcement
agencies to give the state a report about every meth lab seizure. The
state jumped from 889 reported meth-lab cases in 2000 to 2,180 in
2001, a 145 percent rise. Over the same two-year period, Kansas went
from 641 reports to 852, a 33 percent increase.

Federal money is not linked directly to the numbers that states
report, Barton said. But states that have records showing the real
extent of their meth problems have an easier time making a case for
more money to fight it.

It's a correlation that Missouri recognizes. Because that state keeps
good records, it can show that it has a big problem with meth and can
get a bigger percentage of federal money, said Sgt. Jason Clark of the
Missouri Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control.

Since 2003, Missouri has received about $14.4 million from HIDTA, and
Kansas has received about $6.1 million.

States can make great strides against meth production even without
much money from HIDTA. Oklahoma, for instance, dropped from the1,068
reported meth lab cases in 2003 to 652 last year. It received only
$250,000 from HIDTA each of those years. Police give much of the
credit for the decline to an Okalahoma law that makes it tougher for
meth cooks to buy the over-the-counter medicine they need to make their
drug.

The Kansas and Missouri legislatures are considering similar laws.

Meanwhile, Kansas officials keep asking the state's law enforcement
agencies to report all their meth-lab cases.

"You're asking them to do something they're not required to do, so you
don't want to be too demanding," said Smith of the KBI, "but at the
same time, this has an effect."

. Kansas appears to be making progress in reducing the number of meth
labs statewide.

. But the statistics are deceiving because Kansas, unlike Missouri,
does not require all meth-lab seizures to be reported, which also
affects federal aid.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin