DRUG USERS FIND METH LOOPHOLES

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The Mexican Supreme Court has withdrawn its ban on extraditing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."

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."