CONTROLLING METH LABS A PRIORITY

It has become a familiar scene on the evening news across the
country: Neighbors watch in stunned silence as police raid the house
next door and the nice couple who for the most part kept to
themselves is hauled away for running a methamphetamine lab in their basement.

How could this happen, the neighbors ask, in our neighborhood? Isn't
this the kind of thing you only see . . . somewhere else?

Compared to marijuana, heroin or cocaine, methamphetamine, or "meth"
as it is commonly known, is relatively new in the headlines. But this
drug has had a tremendous and terrible impact in a short time.

Once thought to be a problem affecting primarily America's rural
communities, we now know that no community, no matter how large or
how small, is safe from the allure and the destruction caused by
methamphetamine.

Users are drawn in by the drug's promise of euphoria. Its quick,
feel- good results make it appealing to a teenager who may be feeling
blue or to an exhausted stay-at-home mom.

We've seen the allure of a "high" with other drugs. But even more
sinister in some ways than cocaine or heroine, continued
methamphetamine use can interfere with the brain's ability to
experience pleasure normally.

Users quickly learn that methamphetamine is far from glamorous. Their
teeth rot, they can't sleep, they become emaciated from lack of
appetite and their thinning flesh becomes scarred by deep, self-
inflicted scratches as they seek to scratch imaginary bugs out from
under their skin's surface.

But they are addicted, and they usually cannot stop without help.

You may ask, at this point, why we should care about the drug addict?
They are their own victims - no one forced them to use an illegal
drug, right? They deserve to suffer.

But while some consider drug abuse to be a victimless crime, meth
does not just affect the user. It affects the children, it affects
the community, and in a very real and lasting way it affects the environment.

The collateral damage of this drug is nothing short of horrifying.
We've seen babies burned to death when meth-cooking parents
accidentally set fire to the lab in their home. We've seen children
exposed to hazardous chemicals and severely neglected by their meth-
abusing parents.

And we've seen environmental damage caused by meth labs. The
chemicals used in making the drug include lye, red phosphorus and
hydriodic acid, and each pound of finished methamphetamine creates up
to six pounds of hazardous waste. These toxins are often dumped onto
the ground or into the water systems near the lab - making meth your problem.

Last March, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the
Combat Methamphetamine Act, which gave us additional tools for
targeting meth traffickers. This law provides a national standard for
the retail sale of products containing the ingredients needed to make
meth, like pseudoephedrine, and makes other important contributions
to the war against drugs.

The most prominent change you may have seen is your local retailer
moving some cold medicines behind the counter. It seems like a small
step, but thanks to this and other initiatives - particularly at the
state level - we have made tremendous progress in preventing the
production of meth in small labs.

Now we're turning our focus to halting the manufacture and smuggling
of meth from superlabs controlled by Mexican drug trafficking
organizations operating in the United States and Mexico and to
reducing demand in this country.

I've made clear to U.S. attorneys throughout America that meth
continues to be a priority. But we cannot win our fight against
methamphetamine with prosecutions alone. We also need to educate
people about the dangers of the meth, so that they never start using
it. Finally, we need to make sure meth abusers know that help is
available, so they can get clean.

And so the president has declared Nov. 30 as National Methamphetamine
Awareness Day, and events are taking place around the country to
educate people about the dangers of this drug. The Justice Department
is working with our partners at the federal, state and local level,
in government and in the private and non-profit sectors, to increase
understanding of this problem.

It is our firm belief that education efforts do indeed reduce demand.
To put it simply, the more people know about meth, the less likely
they are to use it. And we've created a model methamphetamine
education presentation, called "Meth 101," that is available to
everyone on a new Web site: www.usdoj.gov/methawareness.

Meth poses a tremendous challenge for law enforcement and all of
society. We all share a responsibility to work together in this fight
to ensure a safe, successful and drug-free future for our children
and grandchildren. Progress toward that goal will be something very
worthy of giving thanks for this holiday season.

Alberto R. Gonzales is the U.S. attorney general. Readers may write
to him at: Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,
Washington, D.C. 20530 Web site: www.usdoj.gov.