HEARING ADDRESSES METH ABUSE IN WESTERN NC

"It's Hard To Watch Your Child Die, And That's What I Was Doing."

That was just one of the many comments Lynne Vasquez told three
members of the U.S. House of Representatives during a field hearing
Tuesday in Lenoir on the problem of methamphetamine abuse in western
North Carolina.

Congressman Patrick McHenry, R-NC, and Congressman Mark Souder, R-IN,
serve on the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice,
Drug Policy and Human Resources, and part of their study on the meth
epidemic involved hearing testimony from local, state and federal law
enforcement agents to see what is happening on the ground and to the
families.

Vasquez said her primary concern with the meth problem and the drug
problem in general is the time it takes to investigate, prosecute and
sentence drug users and dealers. Vasquez said she had to watch her son
wither away while using.

Vasquez' son Chad was arrested on April 18, 2004, for having a full
meth lab in his home. On Jan. 5, 2006, Chad was sentenced to seven
years in prison. During the 20 months in between, Vasquez had to fight
for custody of her two grandchildren. She saw the birth and death of a
third grandchild, and she watched her son try to get clean and get
hooked again on meth. "Anything and everything I can tell you would
come back to the same thing - time," Vasquez said. "We need to change
the time elements."

"The law process just isn't quick enough," she said. "Getting my
children out of danger just isn't quick enough. I needed them home
with me out of danger."

District Attorney Jay Gaither also was concerned about the time
elements.

Gaither said currently it takes nine to 12 months to get a lab report
from the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation, and often times people
who were arrested are released while prosecutors wait for the reports.

"Our SBI lab is woefully under-funded," Gaither said. "Often time
these individuals are arrested and released. For nine, 10, 11 months,
they continue to trade in drugs and continue to flaunt our laws.

"That just increases the likelihood that criminal activity will
continue."

Gaither said the SBI needs increased funding to add manpower to
process these meth lab reports in addition to other lab
investigations.

To compound the issue, Van Shaw, the Clandestine Lab Response Unit
Supervisor with the N.C. SBI, said meth lab reports take longer than
many other reports simply because of the nature of the meth labs.

"It takes approximately 50 to 60 hours of processing in the lab," Shaw
said of processing a meth lab.

When agents discover meth labs, the Mason jars and jugs are labeled so
the agents really can't identify what is what. So the agents have to
take a lot of samples, and the lab technicians have to identify a lot
of samples to make a case for court.

Aside from the time issue, the other concern simply boiled down to
dollar bills.

"The solution to this epidemic, as any other epidemic, comes with a
price," said Caldwell County Sheriff Gary Clark.

Clark said limited manpower is the primary issue facing law
enforcement in Caldwell County. One solution would be to form task
forces to combine resources from the local to regional level, Clark
said, and Shaw reported that the SBI is working on a task force.

After more than three hours of testimony, McHenry said the federal,
state and local governments will have to constantly adapt to fight the
meth menace and war on drugs.

"Each year, each month, we are going to have to find new ways to
combat meth," McHenry said. "That's why we are constantly (holding
these hearings)."

McHenry said the top three requests he heard from the testimony are
the need for faster court processes, the need to combat the supply of
meth once local labs are shut down, and the need for more funding and
faster response for meth lab cleanup.

McHenry said deputies can't be standing around guarding a meth lab
while they wait for the state or private contractor to analyze and
clean up a lab.

The next step will be for the committee members to complete their
hearings, and study and recommend additions or changes to federal
policy and possible drug laws.

McHenry said during an earlier interview that he hoped the testimony
would "impact public policy to make sure we have the strongest laws
and most innovative laws to make sure we root out this horrible plague
of meth abuse."