NATIONAL STRATEGY NEEDED

Winston-Salem Journal Sheriff Mark Shook of Watauga County and Chief Don
Owens of Titusville, Pa., could almost have traded scripts as they
testified about the dangers of methamphetamine before a congressional
subcommittee last week. That's because in Northwest North Carolina, in
western Pennsylvania and at a thousand heartbroken points in between, meth
is destroying lives and threatening children. Members of Congress,
including Reps. Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry, are right to be pushing
for ways to combat this deadly, highly addictive drug. A national strategy
is needed.

"It's a community problem, it is not a law-enforcement problem because
everyone in the community has had to deal with it," Shook told the House
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources.

Owens put it simply but well: "Rural America needs help."

Unfortunately, the fight against meth, like so many other righteous fights,
gets dragged down in politics. In North Carolina, Attorney General Roy
Cooper and others have made strong efforts to fight the drug. A bill that
would limits sales of pseudoephedrine, which is found in over-the-counter
medications and can be ground into a powder to make meth, is making its way
through the state legislature despite the opposition of some lobbyists.

Nationally, federal drug officials aren't moving fast enough to fight the
fast growing problem of meth. Officials from the Office of National Drug
Control Policy and the Drug Enforcement Agency who testified last week
acknowledged that meth is a problem, but their answers and solutions did
not satisfy lawmakers. "We see no national coordinated methamphetamine
strategy," said Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana.

Several bills dealing with meth are slowly make their way through Congress,
including one by McHenry that would raise punishment levels in federal
court for those who produce or traffic in meth in the presence of children.
Other bills would tackle other aspects of the problem, including tightly
regulating the sale of pseudoephedrine.

But more national strategy is needed. For starters, federal officials
should take this problem more seriously by convening a national conference
of law-enforcement officers who deal with meth. The officers could emerge
from such a meeting with a battle plan.

The alternative is more horror stories - ones about children being exposed
to the hazards of meth being made in their homes and of deputies and
firefighters being injured as they respond to explosions at these crude
meth labs. The alternative is prisons and social-welfare systems becoming
even more overloaded.

Given the alternatives, a national strategy is the only way to go.
Officials should quickly produce one.