THE SCOURGE MUST BE STOPPED

After sweeping through to the south of us, the east of us and the west
of us, one of the most serious social issues of our time -- the
dangerous drug crystal meth -- has taken root in our back yard. And
unless governments do more to tackle this growing threat, we can
expect what meth has done to communities in North Dakota and other
places to repeat itself in Manitoba.

As the Winnipeg Free Press reported this past weekend, more than half
of the drug ephedrine -- one of the components of crystal meth -- that
is imported into the country ends up in illegal labs, where it is used
to used to make the cheap and highly addictive narcotic. The situation
has gotten so bad, in fact, that Manitoba Justice Minister Gord
Mackintosh has asked the federal government to allow the RCMP to
regulate the flow of ephedrine after critics have said Health Canada
has done little to keep ephedrine -- which is a legal stimulant used
in cold medication and weight-loss supplements -- from being used to
manufacture crystal meth.

Manitoba has already taken some good steps to curb the drug, which
makes addicts out of 90 per cent of its users. It has started a public
awareness campaign, devoted more resources to taking down meth labs
and most importantly, limited the amount of cold medication -- which
is also used to make the drug -- a person can buy at one time. All
those measures amount to little progress, though, if it remains too
easy for criminals to import so much of its main ingredient and
distribute the stuff like it's candy.

In another piece of electioneering, Prime Minister Paul Martin vowed
to fight the flow of meth by giving the go-ahead for Health Canada to
appoint more inspectors. That system, though, clearly isn't working.
Harsher steps are needed to make sure that our towns and cities don't
feel the ravages of crystal meth the same way communities in the U.S.
have suffered.

In North Dakota alone, a state with 500,000 fewer people than
Manitoba, 600 labs have been closed by law enforcement officials. In
Canada, the number of labs that have actually been shut down has
nearly doubled from 25 in 2002 to 40 last year. Meth was recently
discovered in some Brandon schools during a drug sweep. It would be
naive to think that the problem will stop mushrooming here unless
government and police have the tools to stomp out meth labs throughout
Canada.

That is why it makes sense to bring in the RCMP to police the sale of
ephedrine rather than Health Canada, which clearly hasn't been up to
the task. It would be far easier for a police agency whose job it is
to root out meth labs to also control the sale of one of its main
ingredients.

That's only one way to stem the tide. Even harsher sentences for those
who produce and sell meth would be a good start. So would mandatory
treatment for addicts who are under 18 years old, an idea Alberta and
Saskatchewan have passed and for which Manitoba's Progressive
Conservative opposition has advocated.

No matter what, we must be vigilant. Crystal meth is far more
dangerous than marijuana and other soft drugs and has the ability to
cost our society dearly, in both financial and human terms. We have so
far missed the worst of the problem, but we can't assume we will
continue to be so lucky.