BUSH BOLSTERS BATTLE ON METH

Gonzales, Other Top Officials Sent To Show Seriousness Of Threat

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Seeking to defuse a growing confrontation with members
of Congress and local officials over drug policy, the Bush administration
dispatched the attorney general and two other top officials here on
Thursday to pledge that the government is committed to battling
methamphetamine.

"You can tell President Bush considers it a serious threat that he had
three of his Cabinet members here today," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
said in a speech to judges, anti-drug advocates, and graduates at a drug
court here. The administration also pledged to make $16.2 million available
in grants for treatment.

Gonzales was joined in Nashville by the director of the White House Office
of Drug Control Policy, John Walters, and Health and Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt.

For years the White House has focused the anti-drug strategy on marijuana,
arguing that it is the most widely used drug, particularly among high
school students, and can be a gateway to more serious drug use.

Officials have continued to emphasize that in recent months, even as law
enforcement officials across the country have pleaded for more help
fighting methamphetamine, a drug made using chemicals commonly found in
cold medicine or on farms.

But members of Congress from both parties and local officials have argued
that meth, which is highly addictive, is the real problem. They argue that
the administration has virtually ignored the problem.

The administration sparked a political furor when officials with the drug
policy office seemed to downplay the results of a National Association of
Counties survey, released in early July, in which 500 local law enforcement
officials nationwide called meth their No. 1 scourge.

When administration officials doubted the officials' characterization of
meth as an epidemic, the 100-member bipartisan Meth Caucus in Congress, as
well as the rural caucus and members of districts hard hit by the drug sent
angry letters.

The administration officials said they would support efforts to place
limits on individual sales of pseudoephedrine, the cold medicine that is
the key ingredient in methamphetamine, and to monitor more closely
importation of that ingredient.