METH STATISTICS ARE A BOGUS ISSUE IN THE NATIONAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

It was almost as if White House drug czar John Walters was making a
stump speech as he reported on the nation's great progress against
meth labs last year. Most likely, he was.

The progress is real. It's evident in parts of our own region. But
there's a problem regarding attribution.

Armed with data showing fewer meth labs were raided last year and
fewer job applicants testing positive for meth, Walters savored
success: "What this information shows is, on supply and demand, we
are making a difference."

It seems so - depending on how you define "we."

The federal government clearly had a hand in it, fielding grants
hither and yon, apparently to good effect. But these are last year's
statistics. Federal restrictions on the sale of meth "building
blocks" were enacted in March and won't be fully effective until Sept. 30.

We're all for education about the dangers of drugs. Some of the
before-and-after photos of actual meth addicts from our own area are
enough to break your heart - and those photos tell you nothing about
the impact on the people whose lives the addicts and their suppliers
touch. But the truth is that the White House budget proposes to spend
less money, not more, combating meth production and use.

Trying to declare victory in order to justify another budget cut is a
cheap parlor trick.

"Efforts to continue to downplay the threat, after working to cut
funding for anti-meth efforts, are only making those who fight the
meth epidemic daily more angry at this administration," declared Rep.
Mark Souder, who chairs a House panel on drug policy.

It isn't just the administration. The statistics have also proved
useful to members of Congress eager to appear tough on crime in a
critical election year. If Congress wants to accomplish something, it
should spend less time on the falling numbers of seized labs - down
5,000 from the previous year's 17,000 - and turn its attention to the
main source of meth: smugglers.

The grunt-work of fighting the meth industry is being done by state
legislatures that restrict the precursor chemicals and by local law
enforcement doing all it can with whatever resources local
governments provide through outlays or by scrounging grants. The
credit for this downtrend, if it is a trend, is theirs. It should not
be harnessed to the work of politicians scrambling for issues to keep
them in, or propel them into, national office.