'WE'RE WINNING' AGAINST METH, U.S. DRUG CZAR SAYS

In Portland - John Walters Says He Sees the Impact of Recent Global
Efforts to Limit the Trade in Key Ingredients

The United States has achieved major breakthroughs in its battle
against methamphetamine production and use with tighter controls on
the drug's essential ingredients, President Bush's top drug adviser
said Thursday.

John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
said he hopes to see the drug grow scarce as tighter restrictions on
the trade in ephedrine and pseudoephedrine -- the key ingredients in
meth -- start to take effect here and abroad.

"When you can effectively control the precursor, you prevent the
production of meth, you save lives," Walters said. "This state has
proved that; Oklahoma's proved that. Other states have used controls
to prove that. We're taking that nationally; we're taking that globally."

Walters was in Portland to highlight efforts by local community
leaders, as well as drug and law enforcement officials, who have
worked to reduce meth abuse. He praised the Southeast Uplift
Neighborhood Program in Southeast Portland, which bought a former drug
hangout and turned it into a community center.

In a 45-minute interview with The Oregonian, Walters took on critics
who have accused the administration of a slow response to meth. And he
touted a series of new domestic and international measures to track
meth's chemical ingredients, which he said are already having a
measurable impact on the drug's production.

"I would say we're winning, but we're not done," Walters said.
"Nobody's taking a victory lap."

Signs of Success

Walters described progress in curbing the two sources of meth sold in
the United States: small labs operated by users, which account for 20
percent of the supply, and "superlabs" run by Mexican drug cartels,
which make 80 percent.

There have been dramatic declines in the number of small home meth
labs seized since Oregon placed the cold medicines behind pharmacy
counters. Lab seizures from May 2005 through June 2006 were down 78
percent compared with before the restrictions, according to Rob Bovett
of the Oregon Narcotics Enforcement Association.

In a new development, Walters said Oregon law enforcement officials
are reporting the purity of Mexican meth may be starting to drop.
Walters said it's too early to say definitively, but purity may be
falling since Mexican authorities decided to slash imports on
pseudoephedrine from 224 tons in 2004 to 70 tons this year.

U.S. officials have launched a series of additional initiatives
designed to further squeeze the supply of meth chemicals domestically
and internationally.

Congress approved the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act in March,
allowing the State Department to withdraw foreign aid from countries
that fail to prevent diversion of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to the
black market. The law also requires U.S. officials to set import
quotas on the chemicals, and it imposes retail sales restrictions on
pseudoephedrine nationwide.

A "Brutal Education"

Also in March, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in
Vienna unanimously approved a U.S.-backed resolution calling on
nations to hand over much more extensive information on their imports,
exports and use of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

And in June, Walters' office released the National Synthetic Drugs
Strategy, which commits the nation to reducing meth use by 15 percent
before President Bush leaves office. It proposes to do so mainly
through control of the drug's ingredients.

An investigation by The Oregonian in October 2004 found that the meth
trade is uniquely vulnerable because traffickers cannot make the
potent stimulant without massive quantities of ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine. The chemicals originate in a handful of factories in
Germany, India and China.

Walters met recently with diplomats from China and India to discuss
the control of ephedrine, and said the two countries "are very
committed" to the issue. The United States is finding plenty of allies
in Asia, where the United Nations estimates 17 million people use
meth, Walters said.

"The Chinese are worried about the effect on their society," Walters
said. "You've got horrible situations in Thailand and other parts of
Asia. So these countries have not only a desire to stop the criminal
activity, but they have a domestic nightmare that they're facing, in
some cases, if they do not work together."

Walters said that Asia's meth problem has very rapidly brought
international agreement on the need for tighter controls.

"The education that the world has had -- the brutal education -- of
the consequences of meth and amphetamine-type stimulants, has built a
much greater consensus about: 'We have to deal with this, we need to
do it sooner rather than later, and we have to take measures that
particularly focus on precursors,' " he said.

Defending Focus on Pot

Walters has faced harsh criticism from members of Congress and local
law enforcement officials for his perceived inattention to meth in his
five years in office.

"Was meth an epidemic in some parts of the country? Is it maybe today,
in the way it's growing? Yes," he said. "But is it the only drug
problem? Is it the worst drug problem? Is it an epidemic everywhere?
The answer is no."

Walters agreed that meth use and production pose unique
threats.

"The combination of things that it did to people was horrifying," he
said. "Look, addiction takes people over and turns them into someone
else, because it rewires your brain. But this happened rapidly, it
happened at alarming rates of increase, it created consequences that
were felt across innocent groups in the community."

But Walters said the critics are working from a false premise that "if
you're serious about one drug threat, you have to say it's the worst
everywhere."

"My job is to look at the country as a whole," he said.

Marijuana, not meth, remains the most widely used illicit drug,
Walters said. And public officials who identify meth as a bigger crime
problem than marijuana are "short-sighted," he added. Most meth users
he meets at rehab centers say they started with pot.

"People don't want to hear about that epidemic," Walters said. "They
don't want to hear that BC Bud and high-potency marijuana are coming
into our country. We've got more kids dependent on marijuana than all
other illegal drugs combined.

"There is a kind of blind spot here that I think has to be confronted:
'Marijuana is OK. It's all the other hard drugs that are bad.' That's
silly."

Josh Marquis, district attorney for Clatsop County, disagreed.

"Methamphetamine is directly associated with violent and psychotic
behavior. Marijuana is not," said Marquis, who has written critically
about the administration's focus on marijauna.

"I like John Walters, and I think he's good man," Marquis said. "But I
think he's misguided on this."