STATE MUST STOP SPREAD OF 'CRANK'

In recent months a scourge sometimes called crank, once confined to
northwestern Wisconsin, has spread to the southwestern portion of the
state, law enforcement officials report. This drug, a methamphetamine
- - which national drug czar Barry McCaffrey calls "probably the worst
drug to ever hit America" - can make its users mean and evil.

No wonder sheriffs and lawmakers from southwestern Wisconsin have
asked Attorney General Jim Doyle for help in battling this problem.
Doyle, in turn, has asked the Legislature for emergency funds to hire
more drug-fighting agents.

So far, shamefully, politics has gotten the best of this sensible
request. The Joint Finance Committee turned Democrat Doyle down, with
all eight Democrats voting "yea" and all eight Republicans voting "nay."

Reason may still prevail. Sen. Brian Burke, a Milwaukee Democrat who
co-chairs Joint Finance, has asked the conference committee trying to
work out the budget to accommodate Doyle's request. That committee
should do so, to prevent meth from sweeping across Wisconsin.

The other Joint Finance co-chairman, Rep. John Gard, a Peshtigo
Republican, unreasonably faults Doyle for suddenly demanding more agents.

Actually, Doyle's request for three additional agents, to help fight
the meth problem in the northwest, goes back more than a year. On top
of that, Doyle is asking for four more agents to deal with the
southwest problem, which only recently emerged.

Gard suggests that Doyle finance the agents through cutbacks elsewhere
in the Justice Department. The legislator added: "Maybe he should stop
chasing Publishers Clearing House and put some agents on this."

Why some politicians belittle the effort of the attorney general to
fight mail fraud is puzzling. Postal scams cost American consumers
billions of dollars a year, and the victims are often elderly. If the
Justice Department doesn't battle such white-collar crime, who will?
Local police agencies are ill-equipped to do so.

At the same time, tiny, rural law-enforcement agencies need help in
fighting meth. Raiding meth labs, which have cropped up in
southwestern Wisconsin, requires special training, which the Justice
Department agents would have.

The Legislature must honor Doyle's request for additional agents, so
as to prevent the meth problem from spreading to Peshtigo and
elsewhere in the state.