ONLINE DRUG RECIPES EASY TO GET, PANEL TOLD

WASHINGTON -- Instructions for making the illegal drug methamphetamine are
easy to get from the Internet, witnesses told a Senate panel considering a
ban on online drug recipes.

Ron Doerge, Newton County sheriff in southwestern Missouri, on Wednesday
showed senators a chemical-stained sheaf of meth-making instructions a
teen-ager copied from an Internet site he looked up using a public library's
computer. The boy used the directions to make methamphetamine several times
before he was caught, Doerge said.

"We need to eliminate these recipes from the Internet," Doerge told the
Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering legislation that would try
to ban such instructions.

The proposed ban on publishing drug-making instructions is part of a larger
anti-methamphetamine bill sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the
committee's chairman.