U.S. SHIFTS METH FIGHT TO BLOCKING INGREDIENTS

Drugs - Specific Strategies And A First-Ever Measure To Foil The
Black Market Signal A Higher Priority For The Battle

The Bush administration on Thursday released its plan to reduce
methamphetamine use 15 percent by 2008, largely through efforts to
close off the global black market in the drug's essential ingredients.

"This represents the commitment of the administration to work toward
a meaningful and sustained reduction in meth use, as well as the
number of meth labs that have been poisoning too many communities,"
said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

Walters' announcement -- at a news conference with officials from the
Drug Enforcement Administration, the State Department and the Mexican
Embassy -- constitutes the first time federal officials have set a
specific benchmark for success in curbing meth use.

It comes three months after President Bush signed the Combat
Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, which controlled U.S. sales of cold
medicine and carved out unprecedented new responsibilities for the
federal government in battling meth internationally.

Although many of the initiatives described in the strategy are under
way, its content and tone dramatically underscore the heightened
priority being given to the control of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine,
cold medicine ingredients.

For example, the strategy recommends working with the World Health
Organization to promote the development and use of decongestants that
cannot be converted to meth. It has only been within the past year
that U.S. drug companies have begun introducing phenylephrine as a
replacement to pseudoephedrine.

"The speedy replacement on a global scale" of cold medicines with
meth-proof ingredients "would significantly impair the international
market for methamphetamine," the strategy says.

It identifies as part of the plan to reduce meth use the expansion of
drug courts, targeted televised anti-meth ads and prosecution of
high-level traffickers. But the document says tighter controls over
global chemical sales are "the most urgent priority of the federal
government toward reducing the supply of methamphetamine."

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., a frequent critic of the
administration's response to meth, called the strategy "a step in the
right direction."

"I am pleased to see the administration has taken cues from Congress
and pledged to devote more time, energy and resources to combating
the international influx of meth," Baird said in a statement.

But he said the document is at odds with the administration's
proposals to cut federal funding for local law enforcement. He called
on White House officials to "match their rhetoric to their spending
priorities."

Shifting approach

States' restrictions on sales of pseudoephedrine products have
dramatically reduced the number of home meth labs in the past year.
Walters pointed to Oregon as an example, where monthly drug lab
seizures have dropped from 41 to nine since the state controlled
sales of cold medicines.

But an estimated 80 percent of meth sold in the United States now
comes from Mexican-based "superlabs."

Dave Murray, a top Walters aide, said now that the nation has had
success in combating local meth production, the focus has turned to
attacking the ability of Mexican cartels to make meth.

"This is the next stage, the next arena of this fight," Murray said.

Administration officials said they have been working intensely during
the past year to garner greater international cooperation.

Mexican officials have agreed to reduce their imports of
pseudoephedrine to about 70 tons, down from 224 tons in 2004. U.S.
drug officials have begun an exchange program with their counterparts
in Mexico's health ministry to improve their ability to spot
diversion of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from the legitimate marketplace.

Eduardo Ibarrola, deputy chief of mission at the Mexican Embassy in
Washington, D.C., said the administration of President Vicente Fox
recognizes that meth poses "a great risk to the health and well-being
our societies."

"These drugs are highly addictive, incredible harmful, becoming less
expensive and very easy to obtain," Ibarrola said.

In addition, U.S. officials in March successfully brokered a
resolution through the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs calling on
all nations to estimate their legitimate demand for ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine. The information would allow international
authorities to know when a country is trying to import more
pseudoephedrine than it needs.

The administration also is working on identifying top exporters of
ephedrine and pseudoephedrine worldwide -- an effort required by the
new meth law -- and plans to issue a report on those countries'
chemical-control efforts by March 2007.

Walters said he has met recently with ambassadors from the
ephedrine-manufacturing nations of China and India to urge expanded
information sharing on sales of the cold medicine ingredients.

With these diplomatic efforts, Walters said, "we intend to cut off
the flow of precursors to make methamphetamine."

Meeting the goals

The strategy predicts that the domestic and international efforts
against meth chemicals and meth labs will pay off.

It predicts the number of meth labs seized in the United States will
drop 25 percent by 2008, from a preliminary estimate of about 12,000
to 13,000 in 2005.

And, it calls for a 15 percent reduction in the number of people who
report using meth in the past month, from 583,000 in 2004 to 496,000
in 2008, based on the National Household Survey on Drug Use and
Health. The same survey shows 1.4 million Americans had used meth in
the past year.

Administration officials acknowledged that the survey has a wide
margin of error, but called a 15 percent reduction significant and attainable.

The document calls for closely monitoring a variety of other
statistics related to meth use, such as emergency room admissions and
the number of people age 12 to 25 trying the drug for the first time.