Pubdate: Sat, 08 Jul 2006
Source: Daily Times-Call, The (CO)
Copyright: 2006, The Daily Times-Call
Contact:  http://www.longmontfyi.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1475
Author: Pamela Dickman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/Mark+Souder (Mark Souder)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

OFFICIALS - CUT OFF METH AT SOURCE

Drug Crossing Border, Witnesses Tell Feds

LOVELAND -- Northern Colorado officials on Friday asked the federal 
government for help combating methamphetamine.

One suggestion: Close the borders and cut off the source.

The highly addictive drug is taking over communities, tearing apart 
families, monopolizing law enforcement efforts, contributing to 
violent and property crimes and affecting employers, the officials 
said during a congressional hearing Friday in Loveland.

Three district attorneys from northern Colorado, a sheriff, a drug 
task force commander, a Larimer County commissioner and the wife of a 
user who started support groups acknowledged at the hearing that the 
problems caused by meth use, and possible solutions, are complex.

Communities need treatment, prevention, intervention and more money 
to battle the drug, they said.

But communities also need help cutting off the source.

In Colorado, the largest source is Mexico, said Lt. Craig Dodd, 
commander of the Larimer County Drug Task Force.

About 80 percent of the drug consumed in the state comes from Mexico, 
traveling up Interstate 25 then east and west on Interstates 70 and 
76. The statistic is based on a drop in small clandestine labs, as 
well as information gleaned in investigations, the officials said.

Five witnesses at the hearing -- law enforcement officers and 
prosecutors -- all suggested that tighter border security is a 
necessary weapon in the battle.

However, Rep. Mark Souder, R-Indiana, questioned that assertion. 
Souder attended the hearing with Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, whose 4th 
Congressional District includes Longmont and Loveland.

After visiting a southern Border Patrol post and seeing confiscated 
heroin and marijuana, he said he isn't sure.

"They're not getting any meth at the border," Souder said. "Why not?"

Is it, instead, coming from Canada? he asked. Are illegal immigrants 
carrying it to the United States as passage fare?

All local investigation, said Dodd, Denver Drug Enforcement 
Administration agent Jeffrey Sweetin and Weld County Sheriff John 
Cooke, points to it coming north from Mexico into northern Colorado counties.

They could not say how it is getting past patrols, just that it is 
and that federal help is needed.

"We have to have border enforcement with all the drugs coming into 
our country," Musgrave agreed. "I daresay we have to focus on our 
northern borders as well."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman