METHAMPHETAMINE USE: BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S PLAN TO FIGHT METH IS
WINDOW-DRESSING

It's encouraging to see the Bush administration acknowledge that
methamphetamine use is a problem. Until Thursday the federal government has
largely ignored the ravages of this deadly, fiercely addictive and swiftly
spreading scourge.

Still, the soft jab outlined by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, drug
czar John Walters and Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt is
mostly window-dressing.

Instead of cracking down on meth producers, smugglers and users, the White
House is offering a toothless proposal to spend $1 million for anti-meth
ads and $16.2 million over three years for treatment grants and to
establish an educational Web site. Nothing for law enforcement, whose
federal funds have been cut by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

What many members of Congress and law enforcement agencies across the
country rightly want is a federal law, like one that has crippled meth
production in Utah, to make it harder to buy large quantities of
pseudoephedrine, a drug that is commonly found in over-the-counter
decongestants and is a key ingredient in home-brewed meth.

Unfortunately, the White House did not say it would back bipartisan
legislation that would require retailers to keep such products behind the
counter, although similar laws in Iowa and Oklahoma have contributed to
steep declines in their numbers of meth labs.

Walters' assessment that there is no meth epidemic in this country is
surprising in light of the nearly 300 percent increase in meth use in five
years. A survey of 500 law enforcement agencies in 45 states, conducted by
the National Association of Counties last year, found that 58 percent cited
meth as their biggest drug problem, dwarfing cocaine (19 percent),
marijuana (17 percent) and heroin (3 percent).

Meth is cheap and readily available. Where laws reduce local production, it
is smuggled from other states and, increasingly, from Mexico.

Primarily a performance-enhancing drug, meth is especially attractive to
the young who use it to rev up energy levels so they can study for days
without sleeping, work out for hours and lose weight fast because they have
no interest in food. It dangerously increases heart rates and can leave
users emaciated.

Producing bizarre, sometimes homicidal, reactions, it can be addictive
after only one or two uses and is extremely difficult to quit.

We need a battle plan to fight meth, not merely a battle cry.