NOTE TO PROSECUTORS: DRUGS AND DRANO AREN'T WMDS

Are meth heads terrorists?

A prosecutor in northwestern North Carolina thinks so. In a brazen
bastardization of terrorism law, Watauga County District Attorney
Jerry Wilson is charging local drug pushers as terrorists, on the
grounds that their products are weapons of mass destruction.

There's no denying that a methamphetamine industry flourishes in the
cool, spruce-carpeted highlands known more for Christmas trees than
for all-night raves. Twenty-four meth labs have been closed already
this year. Prosecutors and local police are understandably frustrated.

But in slapping alleged meth lab owner Martin Dwayne Miller, 24, with
two counts of manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon in addition
to drug charges, the prosecutor is headed straight down the rabbit
hole in Alice's Wonderland.

Wilson should be proud of himself, not for his cleverness in taking a
law meant for one thing and twisting it to fit another, but for
single-handedly underscoring the potential for misuse of
anti-terrorism laws. This stuff scares the dickens out of Americans
already suspicious of the Patriot Act.

Halting the spread of meth is certainly warranted. The drug erodes
young minds and the labs where it is made explode with alarming
regularity. Wilson gets an A for efforts to rid his community of this
scourge.

But he gets a D for interpretation. North Carolina's terrorism law
defines a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon of mass destruction
as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause
death or serious injury and . . . is or contains toxic or poisonous
chemicals or their immediate precursors."

Because the law appears to prohibit the possession of any chemicals
with the ability to kill people, one wonders what's next on the
prosecutor's hit list. Drano? Cigarettes? Hamburgers?

One professor who specializes in terrorism law said the North Carolina
statute is "poorly written" and criticized it for not paralleling
federal and international law, where the sole purpose is to prevent
the use of chemicals as weapons, instead of drugs or
drain-cleaners.

But in an interview Tuesday, Wilson called it "an excellent statute
that lends itself to more uses than just the typical idea of
terrorism."

Yikes.

Certainly methamphetamines are unlawful. They bring danger to users
and heartache to families of the addicted. States also have every
right to prohibit terrorist acts using toxic chemicals.

But terrorism is defined as the use of force against non-combatants to
achieve a political purpose. Meth isn't a weapon. It's not intended to
terrorize the civilian populace. The only ideology present among its
makers is that of drug pleasure and profit.

When asked for a comment on Monday, a spokeswoman for the North
Carolina attorney general's office punted. "Attorney General Roy
Cooper supports efforts to use the laws of our state to protect North
Carolinians from potential terrorist activities and dangerous drug
production." Thanks for going out on a limb, Roy.

This is not the first time overzealous prosecutors have tried to
stretch laws to fit unintended circumstances. DAs charged
anti-abortion protesters with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations (RICO) Act, a 1970 law passed to whack the Mafia.
Earlier this year, an eight-member majority of the U.S. Supreme Court
had to waste time ruling the obvious: that pro-life demonstrators
aren't racketeers.

On the surface, the meth-as-WMD case smacks of a prosecutor trying to
make political hay. Putting away meth heads, tweakers and jibbernauts
helps when running for re-election every four years.

Dig deeper, however, to find two disturbing corollaries. One, Wilson
is misusing the law to influence punishment, or "whack-shopping," as
a former-FBI-agent friend calls it. Dissatisfied with the state's
penalty for meth production, Wilson nosed around for the law with
which he could whack Miller hardest. Meth manufacturers get 30 months,
maximum; a terrorist gets 12 years to life.

But drug laws are already on the books. If they are inadequate, it's
the state legislature's job -- not an eager-beaver DA's -- to fix the
problem.

And two, charging common criminals as terrorists leads America
straight down an Orwellian path, where any infraction can be
accompanied by cries of "terrorism!" And it will overburden those
already saddled with prosecuting genuine terrorists.

The judge should drop-kick both the terrorism hooey and the prosecutor
out of his courtroom. Terrorism laws should apply to terrorists, not
common criminals or meth heads.