METH IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Methamphetamine is a mind- and body-wasting drug, and North Carolina needs
strong laws to discourage its terrible effects on individuals and families.
But the state also needs to slow the creation of meth-making labs, which
are easy to set up in dining rooms, mobile homes or storage sheds, for
example, and which return big profits. They also can endanger people around
them. In many cases that includes youngsters. Police who raid the labs, and
social workers who arrive to rescue children, also have suffered ill
effects from the potent chemicals used to make the drug.

So North Carolina is well served by a bill the General Assembly has sent to
Governor Easley that stiffens the penalties for making meth and for having
or distributing meth-making ingredients. The measure allows those who make
the drug to be convicted of second-degree murder if a user overdoses. It
raises the penalty for making meth if a child is present, and requires
state health workers to decide when a building used for meth production
could be reoccupied.

Those provisions would do more than deter trafficking and more reliably put
meth-makers behind bars. The bill, which Easley is expected to sign, puts a
needed spotlight on the trade.

Homemade meth cut a life-altering, and often fatal, swath through western
states before showing up in western North Carolina five short years ago.
Police discovered nine meth labs in the state in 1999, but 177 last year.
With less than $400 worth of ingredients, a cook can make $4,000 worth of
meth in three to four hours. The drug quickly produces a euphoric and
addictive high said to be more addictive than crack cocaine. The
legislature also seems ready to put as much as $1 million into hiring
additional SBI agents to stem meth's spread. It would be money well spent.