DRUG USERS FIND LOOPHOLES IN ANTI-METH LAWS

WASHINGTON - Determined drug-users are finding loopholes in new laws that
were designed to combat methamphetamine production, a government official
told senators on Wednesday.

Congress and 39 states have passed laws restricting the sale of cold
medications containing pseudoephedrine, a meth ingredient. They limit the
amount of medicines that individuals can buy, move the products behind
pharmacy counters and require identification for purchase.

But Karen Tandy, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said
she doesn't think the law "will combat 'smurfing.'"

"Smurfing" involves going to multiple stores to purchase enough
pseudoephedrine or ephedrine to cook up a batch of meth. The federal law
only requires that drug stores keep a logbook of how much of the medication
they sell to each individual. Drugstores are not required to keep the
records on computers, and there is no way to check an individual's
purchases across state lines, Tandy said.

"The ability to adopt false IDs equally frustrates our ability to track
that," she said at a hearing of two Senate Foreign Relations subcommittees.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, differed in his view.

Walters, the White House "drug czar," said there have been "dramatic
declines" in domestic meth production, and they should be credited in part
to the laws

Walters said methamphetamine use as measured by on-the-job drug tests has
dropped 45 percent since 2004. He said meth use rates among eighth-, 10th-
and 12th-grade students have dropped by almost one-third since 2001.

But the reduction in domestic meth labs has resulted in increased imports
of the drug from overseas and from Mexico, said Anne W. Patterson, a Fort
Smith native who is the State Department assistant secretary for
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The witnesses said there was growing cooperation between the United States
and Mexican law enforcers on meth cases.

The Mexican Supreme Court has withdrawn its ban on extraditing suspects for
trial, Walters said.

Tandy said the DEA is training 1,000 federal Mexican police in detecting
and raiding meth labs and drug cartels. Mexican police raided one of the
largest labs in the country earlier this year, Tandy said.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., inquired about reports of corruption in local
Mexican police forces.

"I don't think anyone that looks at Mexico can fail to be astonished at how
far they've come," Patterson said. They've done a great job on reforming
the federal police, but the local and provincial police are still shot
through with corruption and in a place like some of these border towns
where it's devolved into battles between drug cartels, the police are in
the pay of one or the other sides," she said.

Walters pointed out the American demand for meth fuels the drug trade.

"Drug users in the United States are sending enormous sums of money," he
said. "We're allowing them ( cartels ) to arm themselves, and they're
tearing apart the institutions of Mexico."