LAWMAKER CALLS FOR NATIONAL METH FIGHT

The Chairman of a House Reform Panel Sees Growing Support for a Broader
Plan to Defeat the Drug As the Epidemic Moves East

WASHINGTON -- With methamphetamine addiction sweeping eastward,
political momentum is building in Congress for a broad national
strategy to destroy the illicit trade and control its essential
chemical ingredients, a key congressional Republican said Thursday.

"Now is the time we push," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of
the House government reform subcommittee that deals with drug policy.

Souder's subcommittee is working on a comprehensive package of
anti-meth legislation to be introduced in the next session of Congress.

"You've now reached a threshold. It's crossed the Mississippi," Souder
said of the drug's rapid spread. "You have a majority of Congress now
interested in this."

The conservative Republican held a hearing Thursday in which the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration and the White House drug czar's office
testified about strategies to stop the drug. In addition,
representatives for the pharmaceutical industry threw key support
behind eliminating certain loopholes in current drug law.

During the hearing, Souder spotlighted The Oregonian's five-part
series "Unnecessary Epidemic," which showed the meth trade can be
stopped with policies that target the drug's essential ingredients --
pseudoephedrine or ephedrine.

Souder entered the newspaper series into the hearing record before
pressing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to respond to issues
raised in the series about monitoring shipments of chemicals from
overseas factories.

Souder asked why the DEA does not routinely monitor records of every
pseudoephedrine shipment from factories in India. Only nine producers
worldwide, all of them legitimate businesses, account for the bulk of
the world's supply.

"We do work with the Indian government," said Joseph Rannazzisi,
deputy chief of the DEA's Office of Enforcement Operations. "We sit on
numerous international committees where there is dialogue between our
staff and the Indian government regarding these sales."

In a letter to The Oregonian, DEA Administrator Karen Tandy disputed
portions of the newspaper series and said it "shortchanges DEA's
efforts and successes" in the fight against meth. She said the agency
has cracked down on meth superlabs and improved international
cooperation to catch traffickers.

When The Oregonian's editorial page editor asked Tandy to revise and
clarify portions of the letter, she withdrew it and posted in on the
agency's Web site.

Souder told The Oregonian after the hearing that he is anxious to
produce a package of legislation soon because meth appears to be
headed inexorably toward cities on the East Coast, where the drug
could someday take the place of crack cocaine.

Souder said that grass-roots pressure from rural counties across the
country is beginning to force attention to the issue.

"Meth has not been a focus," Souder said. "Everybody's scrambling to
catch up with what is happening at the ground level."

White House Touts Own Plan

Souder's committee also heard testimony in support of the Bush
administration's newly released comprehensive plan to battle
methamphetamine. The plan, released in late October, represents one of
the highest-profile endorsements of chemical control ever introduced.

"There are things we can do that we know will make the methamphetamine
problem smaller," said Scott Burns, deputy director of the White House
drug czar's office.

The hearing also featured concessions from trade groups previously
opposed to stringent regulations on pseudoephedrine, an ingredient
both in meth and in cold medicine.

Linda Suydam, lobbyist for the over-the-counter drug industry, said
her group supports eliminating a loophole that let stores sell
unlimited quantities of cold pills contained in blister packs.

The industry was instrumental in creating the loophole during the last
major congressional effort to regulate meth chemicals in 1996,
claiming that the packages would frustrate meth makers.

"In '96, we thought that the blister packs would in fact help to solve
this problem," Suydam said in an interview. "We've come to understand
that this is not solving the problem."

Industry lobbyists spoke favorably, meanwhile, about potential
solutions to the meth problem outlined in The Oregonian series.

Lobbyist Seeks Incentives

Mary Ann Wagner, a lobbyist who represents the nation's chain drug
stores, said the federal government should provide incentives for drug
companies to develop cold medications that cannot be used in
methamphetamine.

Wagner said U.S. officials should work more closely with officials in
the only producers of pseudoephedrine in the world -- India, China,
Germany and the Czech Republic -- to more closely track every
shipment. The industry also supports more money for DEA to monitor
domestic sales of products containing the chemical.

A proposal to set import quotas on pseudoephedrine based on an
estimate of legitimate demand, outlined in the White House meth plan,
also drew support from retailers.

The biggest controversy remains around whether or not Congress should
adopt an Oklahoma law that allows only pharmacists to sell cold pills
and for customers to provide their names and addresses. Oregon Gov.
Ted Kulongoski introduced similar rules in October, and officials in
other states appear eager to follow suit.

Wagner, the drugstore lobbyist, said the law is hard on consumers and
cuts into time pharmacists can spend filling prescriptions.

"The same results can be accomplished without the extreme steps that
were taken in Oklahoma," she said.

Lonnie Wright, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs, called it a reasonable trade-off.

"What we're really weighing here is treating the sniffles versus
solving this problem," Wright said. "As a police officer, I'd rather
solve this problem."

Rannazzisi of the DEA testified that the jury was still out on whether
the law had reduced the number of Oklahoma meth labs.

"It wouldn't be prudent for me to say at this point in time, 'This is
it. This is what we need,' " Rannazzisi said. "Is it promising?
Absolutely. But I don't think I can tell you at this point in time,
based on the statistical data we have, that this is the answer.