PROPOSED NC LAWS STIFFEN PENALTIES FOR METH-RELATED CRIME

Sheriff Mark Shook puts a methamphetamine maker in jail, crime in that
person's neighborhood plummets.

"With one (methamphetamine) cook, we would go from having domestic
(disputes) every night or break-ins every night in that area," Shook said.
"When he was in (jail), we had none."

The crime that methamphetamine labs bring to their neighborhoods has made
getting stiffer penalties for making the drug a priority for law
enforcement and North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Cooper stood by Tuesday as a legislative committee in Raleigh approved four
bills to increase penalties for meth-related crimes.

Shook said such penalties are needed to prevent meth manufacturers, known
as cooks, from being released from jail or prison and continuing to make
the drug.

"The penalties for manufacturing very seldom result in any time behind
bars," Cooper said after the legislative meeting Tuesday. Sheriffs are
"complaining to me that these meth lab (makers) are back on the streets
before the paperwork is done."

The methamphetamine epidemic has hit rural Western North Carolina counties
hardest.

Watauga County, known as ground zero in the meth world, had 34 labs in
2003, while Buncombe and Rutherford counties had 12 and 14, respectively.

Meth is a powerful stimulant that is made from over-the-counter cold
medicine and volatile household chemicals.

Meth labs produce toxic fumes and can explode, posing a hazard to the
communities they are in and the police officers who investigate them.

The chemicals used to make meth are so dangerous that Watauga County
District Attorney Jerry Wilson last summer charged an accused cook with
manufacturing a nuclear or chemical weapon.

The case showed how desperate prosecutors were to find a punishment to fit
the meth crime.

The laws approved by committee Tuesday would:

a.. Upgrade the severity of the felony charge for making meth, increasing
the maximum prison time from 25 to 49 months.

b.. Allow a judge to give a harsher sentence to someone who made the drug
with children in the home.

c.. Add meth to a list of drugs for which a dealer can be charged with
second-degree murder if a user dies from overdose.

d.. Increase penalties for having chemicals used to make meth, if the
intent in having them is to manufacture the drug.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.