PUT METH ON WHITE HOUSE DRUG HIT LIST

For the last several years, methamphetamine has been the nation's
fastest growing illegal drug. It's easy to manufacture, primarily out
of household products that cost as little as $50. It can be made at
home, so there's no middle man to get the stuff, no dangerous
transactions, no borders to cross.

It gives a powerful high and is highly addictive.

"The problem is getting worse and worse," says Master Sgt. Ron Ales.
As head of the local State Police meth response team, he should know.
In the eight weeks his unit has been operating, it's made 21 arrests
and busted 14 labs in a 15-county central Illinois region that
includes the Tri-County area. Business is so good the officers are
working full-time on meth, among the more than 60 officers across
Illinois doing so.

It comes as no surprise to him that county sheriffs from throughout
the nation believe that methamphetamines are their most serious drug
problem. In a survey conducted by the National Association of
Counties, the sheriffs blamed meth for overcrowding in their jails,
for increases in theft and violence and for various social welfare
problems, including child abuse.

One sheriff in Indiana estimates that 80 percent of his inmates are
being held on meth-related offenses. Imagine that. Just last week,
the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it would
shift 56 caseworkers from the Chicago area to downstate because the
rise in methamphetamine abuse is tearing families apart.

The sheriffs used their findings to ask the federal government to
restore $804 million cut from the 2006 budget to fight drugs.

Some of that money had been used to form local anti-meth units, such
as those in Illinois. The cut is especially harmful because of the
popularity of meth and because "there's not much (federal money) to
start with," says Joe Dunn, the county association's associate
legislative director.

Now the sheriffs have an important ally in Washington. Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales Monday called meth "the most dangerous drug
in America," surpassing marijuana.

His analysis is welcome, since the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy - at least until last week - was insisting that
the nation's most serious drug problem is marijuana.

White House officials said this is because there are 15 million
marijuana users in the country, compared to an estimated one million
meth addicts.

They also argued that marijuana is a gateway drug that can lead to
more harmful behavior.

Obviously, these officials have spent very little time in the rural
parts of Illinois or Indiana, where the gateway drug is
methamphetamine, where it's crippling users and their families, where
it's imposing almost impossible burdens on police agencies.

It's not marijuana that's filling up the county jails.

The meth problem alone makes a strong case for restoring the
drug-fighting money cut from next year's federal budget.

But a stronger one exists for distinguishing pot from meth and for
turning the White House's bully pulpit toward the most dangerous drug
out there. Gonzales' statement is a start.