ATTORNEY GENERAL PUSHES FOR TOUGHER DRUG LAWS

DES MOINES - Drug dealers who rely on pagers to get messages from the
people who want to buy their drugs could find authorities tapping in, if a
proposed law is adopted.

Among the new laws being proposed by the Iowa Attorney General's office
this year will be a measure to update the state's wiretap law.

Current state law doesn't provide for some of the technology now available
such as pagers and cellular telephones. County attorneys who need wiretaps
that include those items must use the federal law which does provide
access. The Iowa law was adopted in 1989, said Doug Marek, deputy attorney
general.

Marek was among three deputies from the Iowa Attorney General's office
making presentations to the Oversight and Communications Appropriations
Subcommittee. The subcommittee, which includes both House and Senate
members, is co-chaired by Sen. Steve King, R-Kiron.

Marek said methamphetamine dealers are using pagers to receive messages
from drug users who want to make a buy.

Other requests for changes in Iowa's laws also focus on the methamphetamine
problem. Marek said there is a new method of manufacturing meth that uses
readily available chemicals that are widely used for other things. The
Attorney General's office is asking that possession of those chemicals with
the intent to manufacture methamphetamine be made a felony.

The office also wants to make illegal disposal of hazardous waste from a
meth lab a felony, and wants an additional law that will allow the state to
assess a cleanup fee against those convicted of manufacturing the drug.

Typically, once a meth lab has been discovered and the evidence removed,
some hazardous materials still remain. This poses a special problem for
volunteer fire departments in rural areas where no one is trained or
equipped to deal with the removal. Marek said those departments generally
hire a larger city's hazardous waste unit to dispose of the materials, but
that is expensive.

While many of those caught manufacturing methamphetamine have no assets,
some do and assessing a cleanup charge would allow rural areas - as well as
larger cities - to recover some of their costs.

Gordon Allen, deputy attorney general, explained the status of the tobacco
case, noting that it may be some time before the state actually receives
the money it is due because of the need for final approval of the
settlement by New York and Pennsylvania.

He said up to 67 percent of the money the state receives may be claimed by
the federal government because it pays that much of Medicaid costs, on
which the lawsuit was based.

Tom Ormiston, deputy attorney general, explained the status of the state's
case against Microsoft and other anti-trust lawsuits currently under way.
Iowa was among 20 states which filed suit against Microsoft. Ormiston said
it was a duty the Iowa Attorney General owed to protect consumers.

Ormiston also said the attorney general's office is investigating the cost
of airline tickets.

Among the issues the Oversight and Communications Appropriations
Subcommittee will deal with during the coming weeks is the Y2K problem, or
millennium bug.

Rep. Libby Jacobs, co-chair of the committee, said the committee has been
working on the issue for several years. This year, there will be a full
briefing of all members of the House and Senate in a joint session,
probably in mid-February, she said.

The committee also will consider some of the nine options for the future of
the Iowa Communications Network which were provided in a recent report by
an outside consultant. Those options include the possible sale of the ICN,
although that was not recommended by the consultant because of possible
legal problems.