RAISING THE METH STAKES

Court ruling should discourage manufacture

To be successful, the struggle to reduce drug use in San Diego and
throughout America will have to attack the problem on many fronts.
Certainly, reducing demand through education is important. So are
interdiction and severely punishing those who break the law.

In San Diego, much of the struggle has been against the manufacture and use
of methamphetamine, one of the most popular illegal drugs here. In fact,
San Diego has earned the unhappy distinction of "meth capital of America."
According to the National Institute of Justice's Drug Use Forecasting
Program, methamphetamine accounted for 37.1 percent of illegal drug use in
San Diego in 1996. It is the major source of emergency-room and treatment
admissions in hospitals. It also is linked to much of the crime in San
Diego County.

With San Diego and the rest of Southern California facing an explosion in
methamphetamine use, the 4th District Court of Appeal recently raised the
stakes for those who choose to manufacture the drug. In a unanimous ruling,
the court declared that prosecutors now will be able to charge those who
make the drug with second-degree murder if their activities result in
anyone's death.

While this case stemmed from the deaths of a manufacturer's three small
children who were killed when her lab exploded, the ruling does have wider
implications. According to the San Diego County Methamphetamine Strike
Force, the The Drug Enforcement Agency dismantled 63 labs in 1996. The
county Department of Environmental Health has cleaned up 354 manufacturing
sites since 1991. So, indirectly, this ruling adds protection for workers
from those and other agencies who may be exposed to methamphetamine labs.

While the court ruling will by no means solve San Diego's methamphetamine
problem, it may cause a few manufacturers to think twice about the possible
consequences of their actions.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.