BAIRD FORMED CONGRESSIONAL METH CAUCUS TO BETTER LOBBY FOR DRUG-FIGHTING
RESOURCES

U.S. Rep. David Wu, a Democrat whose district includes Clatsop County, said
he and his counterpart across the river, U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.,
started paying attention to the meth issue about five or six years ago.

"In 1999 and 2000, it was a surprise to me that meth was in rural counties.
Now it has become a dramatic national issue, and that has brought more
resources to the table. We have roughly doubled the amount of federal money
to fight meth, and Oregon will get its share," Wu said.

Contamination caused by meth labs is of particular concern to Wu, who is
the ranking member of the House Science Committee's Subcommittee on
Environment, Technology and Standards. He helped author a bipartisan bill
that would help develop cleanup guidelines for meth labs and provide for
studying long-term health impacts to children living in meth labs and first
responders who enter meth labs.

"The pattern is that once a community focuses a lot of attention on meth,
the number of labs and the amount of use tend to drop," Wu said.

Baird, who was a practicing psychologist before he was elected to Congress
in 1998, has first-hand knowledge of the effects of meth.

"I worked with meth addicts and I saw it increasing in my practice. It's
one reason I ran for Congress," he said. Baird said he visits every high
school in his district every two years, and always talks about meth.

During those visits, young people from Pacific County have come to him to
ask what they should do about friends who are cooking meth. One 16-year-old
said his mother had died two years earlier from using meth.

Until a couple of years ago there was an exponential growth of home labs,
Baird said. That number has gone down recently, but not the number of
users. He said comprehensive federal legislation is in the pipeline to deal
with the domestic and international supply of precursor chemicals, as well
as additional funds to deal with the influx of meth from Mexico.

"In terms of the destructive impact of the drug, it doesn't matter where it
comes from," Baird said.

Five years ago, Baird founded the House Meth Caucus. From a small
beginning, the caucus now has more than 100 members. The bipartisan group
recently sent a letter to President Bush declaring meth to be the nation's
No. 1 drug threat. Until last month, the administration's drug czar had
played down meth and focused on marijuana as the major threat.

"They realize they've been AWOL on this issue," Baird said. "I think we're
making progress. This year is a turning point in Congressional awareness of
meth."