OUR BETTER METH LAW

U. S. Senator Tom Coburn was backing views of Oklahoma crime fighters
including Claremore Police Chief Mickey Perry in challenging a proposed
federal law that would replace Oklahoma's powerful and effective legal tool
against illegal methamphetamines.

Former narcotics undercover agent Perry praised the state law as "highly
effective" in erasing "meth labs," that used over-the-counter drugs to
manufacture highly-addictive, dangerous and illegal drugs.

Meth and crack cocaine are commonly considered the most lethal of all
addictive chemical substances in the underworld. One usage, it generally
believed, results in life-long, hard-to-cure addiction. Lives by the
millions have been wrecked by these made-from-chemical killers. Moments of
ecstasy quickly resolve into stark madness from which users are never cured
but, with tough restraint, are "recovering addicts."

While Perry and Scott Rowland, the knowledgeable lawyer for the state
Bureau of Narcotics, both praise Congress for attempting to nationally
apply the innovative, landmark Oklahoma law they fear "unintended
consequences" by part of the law that pre-empts the effective state statute.

Perry and Rowland agree that "a national uniform standard" of controlling
medicines necessary to manufacture meth is needed but the federal law.
Rowland says federal laws should not pre-empt "the ability of Oklahoma
lawmakers and the governor to continue protecting Oklahoma citizens."

Rowland notes that after the federal Meth Control Act of 1996 was passed,
lab seizure in Oklahoma doubled from "125 in 1996 to 241 in 1997." It was
amended in 2000 then seizures "jumped from 946 to 1,191.

Perry credits the self-effacing lawyer Rowland with virtually writing HB
2176, the bill that Oklahoma lawmakers enacted and that the now pending
federal legislation duplicates. Unfortunately, it adds the unsavory part
that would stop state's from enacting their own laws.

Without HB 2176, Rowland says "all available evidence thus suggests we
would now be experiencing yet another record year for meth lab seizures
rather than an 80-90 percent reduction."

Coburn and two other senators last week derailed Senate action on the
"combat Meth Act of 2005 championed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
While she feared the powerful pharmaceutical lobby sparked opposition,
Perry said Coburn was guided by Oklahoma and Missouri state-level agents
who operate under similar laws.

While the Act include large appropriations for hiring more prosecutors and
federal agents and generally could trigger a uniform nationwide fight to
shuttered meth labs.

Rowland wrote boldly that "once enacted, the federal legislation could be
altered at the will of Congress, and it has been my experience that the
influence of pharmaceutical giants is much more pronounced at the federal
level than we experienced at the state level."

In its final days before the traditional August recess, the senate
subcommittee should rethink and rewrite that damaging part of the Combat
Met Act that silences the very effective statutes written by alert state
legislatures and effectively enforced by local officers.