METH SUMMIT

"A former Vanderburgh County deputy auditor pleaded guilty to embezzling
nearly $28,000 in taxpayer money, saying he needed the cash to buy
methamphetamine for a habit that began while he worked 16-hour days
processing tax bills."

This Associated Press story sums up how devastating methamphetamine abuse
is. It's no longer limited by class, nor is it solely a rural problem. And
even though the Indiana State Police has seen a dramatic drop in meth lab
seizures over last year, three-fourths of the U.S. meth supply comes from
foreign superlabs.

Those problems and a host of others will be discussed when 13 Midwestern
governors and policy wonks from the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy meet in Indianapolis for a three-day meth summit in December.
The summit should have happened two years ago, but It's better late than
never.

The best news so far about this summit is that the White House drug policy
office finally appears to be taking the crisis seriously. It has wheeled 180
degrees from late July. Back then, the deputy director of the drug office
told a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, that people in
the Northeast and Chicago would laugh if you told them there's a meth
epidemic. A problem that costs Indiana law enforcement $100million a year
isn't anything to laugh about.

Indiana has won a few battles against the spread of meth. Lab seizures have
dropped. The Department of Correction graduated the first prisoners from its
anti-meth program. But as Gov. Mitch Daniels said Wednesday, The struggle
will go on for a long time. The three-day summit should point the way
toward a unified effort between federal and state governments to combat
meth. And cooperation is the only way this country is going to see this
plague through.