WYOMING HAS METH PROBLEM, DRUG CZAR SAYS

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming lawmakers should not think that the
methamphetamine problem does not reach the state, U.S. drug czar Barry
McCaffrey told a joint session of the Legislature Wednesday.

The problem does not belong to minorities, Easterners, poor people or crazy
people, McCaffrey said.

McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, and Gov. Jim Geringer said Wyoming has higher per capita rates of
drug abuse and addiction than national rates.

"We have a problem, and we are the ones who are going to solve it" with
federal support, Geringer said.

"Methamphetamine is the worst thing that has happened to the country, in my
view," McCaffrey said.

Rep. Mac McGraw, D-Cheyenne, agreed with McCaffrey's approach to solving the
drug problem.

"I like the grassroots-up approach he advocates as opposed to the top-down
approach," McGraw said. "It's in our schools. ... It is a community problem
and that's where it's going to be resolved."

Sen. Keith Goodenough, D-Casper, said the answer to solving the drug problem
lies in the way children are raised.

"We have to tell the truth to the kids," he said. "We have to raise them to
make good decisions for themselves and that's why they don't do drugs, not
because they're afraid of the law."

He disagreed with McCaffrey's characterization of the drug problem in the
United States as a cancer as opposed to a war.

McCaffrey said "war on drugs" implies that someone gets to declare total
victory and go home at the end of the day. Drug abuse, he said, is actually
a cancer affecting American communities.

"I thought the 'war on drugs' was a good metaphor," Goodenough said. Drug
problems, he said, comes with the same violence, deception and injustice
that are a part of war.

"The war is just not being prosecuted in the right way," Goodenough said.