DEMOS SACRIFICE ANTI-METH BILL IN POWER BINGE

Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee have no shame. They
played pure partisan politics Tuesday in blocking a worthy bill by
Assemblyman Dave Cogdill, R-Modesto.

The legislation proposed by Cogdill would make it a felony instead of a
misdemeanor to possess large stashes of the ingredients used to make
methamphetamine. It also would boost fines and prison terms for people who
extract meth-making ingredients from allergy and cold tablets and asthma
inhalers.

Cogdill's bill -- like most other measures by GOP legislators -- was
quashed by Democrats who subordinated the public good to their own partisan
interests. The Democrats' cover story, that innocent people might be
prosecuted if the bill were adopted, could apply to any proposed law. And
frankly, very few innocent people build stockpiles of the chemicals used to
make meth.

By now, even the Democrats on the Assembly Public Safety Committee must
know that California's Central Valley is the methamphetamine capital of the
world. Widespread media coverage -- including an October 2000 special
report on methamphetamine published by the Modesto, Fresno and Sacramento
Bees -- has drawn broad attention to the lethal drug and its layers of
consequences.

Not only does the drug kill its addicts and destroy the lives of users'
children, but the manufacture of methamphetamine causes environmental
devastation that harms all valley residents. Toxic waste from producing
methamphetamine contaminates soil and farmland and threatens water
supplies. When such damage can be mitigated, taxpayers pony up millions of
dollars to clean up abandoned meth labs.

Because it would help fight this powerful scourge, Cogdill's bill has broad
support from law enforcement, including the state's top cop, Attorney
General Bill Lockyer -- a Democrat. Stanislaus County Sheriff Les Weidman,
chairman of the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in the Central
Valley, said Wednesday that the Cogdill measure "would have a major impact
on our ability to help control the problem here."

Legislators plan to revisit the bill later this month, and the policy-
makers would do well to put problem-solving before partisanship. The
Democrats' strategy this go-around -- block bills like this to maintain the
power to block bills like this -- was a pitiful display of "leadership."

To share your views with the chairman of the Assembly Public Safety
Committee, contact Assemblyman Carl Washington, D-Compton, at the State
Capitol, P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento 94249-0001; phone (916) 319-2052; fax
(916) 319-2152; or e-mail Carl.Washington@assembly.ca.gov.