SALAZAR: EMPHASIS ON WRONG DRUG

America's drug czar is in Colorado this week to counter efforts to
legalize marijuana, but Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said
methamphetamine should be the focus.

John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy,
will release data from drug treatment programs and workplace testing
that prove marijuana is a severe problem in Colorado.

"There is a general feeling that people who use marijuana are harmless
and kind of funny," Walters said Friday in a telephone interview.

"There are people coming into the criminal justice system for
marijuana and some are engaged in violent crimes," he said. "It
doesn't just make you giggle."

On Friday, Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa,
urged President Bush to fire Walters for wasting millions on marijuana
programs instead of tackling the more serious methamphetamine issue.

"It's political," responded Walters. "Over the last four years, the
drug problem in American has gotten smaller. Youth meth use is also on
the way down."

Salazar spokesman Cody Wertz said Salazar won't ask Bush to fire
Walters, but he would like to invite Walters to visit rural areas of
Colorado.

"The rural sheriffs would say that meth is our biggest problem," said
Wertz. "We do need to focus more on the methamphetamine scourge than
marijuana."