METH IS STILL A PROBLEM IN N.C.

North Carolina lawmen are finding fewer methamphetamine labs this
year but said the drug continues to cause problems in their communities.

Law enforcement officials credit the downturn in meth lab seizures to
a state law that limits the sale of cold medicines containing a key
ingredient used to make meth. The law took effect in January.

State and local officials said they must attack all aspects of the
methamphetamine problem, work together and educate the public in
order to curb the trend. While the state works to reduce the
prevalence of meth labs, the issues of drug addiction and meth
trafficking are also being addressed.

The State Bureau of Investigation counted 139 seizures of meth labs
from January to June of this year compared with 207 busts during the
same period last year. The reduction is partly due to the new law
that restricts the sale of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine,
a decongestant that is a primary ingredient of meth.

It makes sense that if you keep the main ingredient out of the hands
of criminals, you'll have fewer of these dangerous labs," Attorney
General Roy Cooper said. New laws

Other laws, such as mandatory prison time for meth manufacturers and
punishments for those who make the drug around children, have also
put a dent in the number of labs in the state, Cooper said.

Curbing the spread of makeshift meth labs allows lawmen to focus
better on catching large-scale drug traffickers, they said. It also
cuts down on the environmental risks the labs pose. About 20 percent
of meth labs are discovered because they explode and toxins from the
labs pollute the environment. Exposure to the fumes has made some people ill.

When the labs are uncovered, only lawmen trained to dismantle the
operations can help clear up the scenes to reduce risks. Hoke County
Sheriff Hubert Peterkin said in the cases where meth labs were
discovered in his county, he had to stand across the street while SBI
agents took apart the labs.

If someone were to go into a meth lab, it could actually do a lot of
harm," Peterkin said.

So far this year, two meth labs have been found in the Hoke County.
The most recent lab was discovered in May in a home near Raeford.
Three people were charged with running a meth ring.

Peterkin said he worries that the busts could be an indication that
the drug is gaining popularity in the community. "I'm hoping that we
don't get some of the problems that some counties have," the Hoke
sheriff said. "Right now our biggest problems are crack cocaine and marijuana."

Among Cape Fear region counties, the drug has been most prevalent in
Harnett and Sampson counties. Contrary to the state trend, the number
of lab seizures in those counties jumped this year.

In Harnett County, lawmen have uncovered 16 labs as of July 19,
compared to four seizures last year. One of this year's lab busts was
a single methamphetamine operation that had been running out of three
homes. Each house counted as a lab even though a different house was
used to conduct a part of the meth "cooking" process.

Two of the meth labs were seized Thursday as part of a statewide
sweep organized through the National Alliance of State Drug
Enforcement Agencies.

Sampson County deputies busted 11 labs in 2005 and have already
surpassed that number this year. As of July 19, 12 labs had been
discovered in the county.

The counties are attractive to manufacturers because they are rural
and the labs can exist unnoticed. But lawmen also said that public
awareness has played a part in the discovery of the labs. Many of the
busts were a result of residents who tipped off police, lawmen said.

It depends on the vigilance of each county in trying to deal with the
problem," Sampson Sheriff Jimmy Thornton said.

Two years ago, Sampson County created a meth task force composed of
county and school officials, lawmen, social workers and public health
and mental health workers. The task force developed a plan that
identified four goals: early intervention, raising public awareness,
writing a response plan and training.

The task force within itself is attributable to the education and the
knowledge that has brought awareness to the issue," Thornton said.
Most people think that these kinds of problems are everywhere but
where you are, but that's not the case."

J.W. Simmons, chairman of the county's meth task force, said the
problem is being tackled, but more needs to be done to help quell
addiction. The task force is working to help provide drug users with
the assistance they need to recover, as well as implementing
prevention efforts to keep people from ever trying the drug.

We've started an awakening in which people are starting to understand
that this is something that needs to be addressed on a different
level, not just with handcuffs and guns," Simmons said. Addiction is
a disease, he said, and should be handled as such.

We're not treating the disease," Simmons said. "We're simply locking
it away for a while." National spread

Nationwide, the popularity of methamphetamine has spread from the
West Coast to the East. In recent years, Midwestern states have
reported being hit particularly hard by the emergence of the drug.
State officials there have reported drastic increases in the number
of meth labs, emergency room visits of people who are hooked on the
drug, and cases involving children who are removed from meth homes.

A survey of sheriffs in 44 states showed that law enforcement
officials see methamphetamine as the biggest drug problem in their
communities. The survey, which was released July 18 by the National
Association of Counties, also found jails and prisons are being
filled with inmates who commit meth-related crimes.

But an earlier study by the Sentencing Project had different
findings. The Washington-based nonprofit group does research and
advocacy on criminal justice policy issues.

In its June study, the organization disputed how the news media and
government officials have portrayed meth abuse nationwide. According
to the study, only a small number of Americans use the drug and the
abuse of meth has remained level over the past few years.

We wanted to take a look at what is really known about the extent of
meth use and what is being caused by it," said Marc Mauer, the
executive director of the Sentencing Project. "We don't deny that
methamphetamine is a bad thing. But just because it's a problem in
Montana doesn't mean it's a problem in Philadelphia."

The study says that reports of meth's prevalence have been
exaggerated and the drug users' receptiveness to treatment has been downplayed.

To the contrary, this combination of rhetoric and misinformation
about the state of methamphetamine abuse is costly and threatening to
the national drug abuse response," the study says, "because it
results in a misallocation of resources."

The study confirmed that drug abuse is a problem in America, Mauer
said, and that the nature of the disease is complex. And the
communities where meth is the threat should address it as such, he said.

We can't just have a 'one size fits all' national approach to
methamphetamine because it's just not much of a problem in some
places," Mauer said. "We need to go beyond just people's gut reactions."