USA: Papering over the meth problem

The Bush administration's new methamphetamine plan is about stemming criticism, not the drug epidemic The Bush administration's new methamphetamine strategy is a plan to fight little more than the perception that the White House does not take the meth epidemic seriously.

The administration trotted out three Cabinet members Thursday to say all the right things about the spread of meth. It offered up a token few millions for meth treatment and anti-drug ads. But it did not demonstrate that it grasps the extent to which meth addiction is fueling crime and ruining lives, or understands how meth, unlike other drugs, could be stopped through effective international controls on its principal ingredient.

If it were serious about beating meth, the Bush administration would be demanding more money for rural police and sheriffs, not proposing to cut federal grants to law enforcement in states that allow medical marijuana.

It would be moving strongly to tightly monitor the international trade in pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in meth and a chemical produced in only nine factories around the world. It would be leaning all over Mexico, which still allows the importation of far more pseudoephedrine that it has any legitimate use for, permitting tons of the chemicals to be diverted by drug cartels to superlabs that supply 80 percent of the meth in this country.

It is abundantly clear that the Bush administration is still not prepared to join Oregon and other states in a real fight against meth. "Pathetic," is the word Indiana Rep. Mark Souder, a Republican, used to describe the administration's meth plan.

At least the Bush administration, particularly Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, is now talking about meth and acknowledging that it is a severe nationwide problem. But its plan is mostly vague promises and symbolic spending -- an unfunded study of the thousands of kids pulled to safety out of meth homes, a paltry $1 million to spend on anti-meth ads.

You don't even have to read between the lines to see that the White House still considers meth a political problem, not a drug epidemic. There is no sign that the feds are prepared to go after meth the way they must, knocking hard at the doors of drug labs in rural America and the gates of Asian pseudoephedrine factories.

It is infuriating that so many people still want to waste time debating whether meth is more or less of a problem than marijuana, cocaine or other drugs. It is not marijuana or cocaine that is linked to half the kids sent to foster homes in this state. It is not marijuana driving an explosion in property crimes, especially identity theft. It is not cocaine leaving behind polluted homes and apartments that cost taxpayers millions of dollars to clean up.

We'll leave the question of whether meth meets the definition of "epidemic" to the experts sitting in think tanks and newspaper offices in New York and Washington, who have suggested Oregon and other states are "crying meth."

Meanwhile, the people on the front lines, the cops in the hazmat suits, the child-abuse workers who see meth kids every day, the drug counselors with the long waiting lists, will keep fighting meth with everything they have.

If only the federal government would join them.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Sun, 21st August 2005
Source: The Oregonian (USA)
Copyright: 2005 The Oregonian
Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/