GONZALES: WE'RE WINNING WAR AGAINST METH

PORTLAND -- Despite some grim statistics, authorities are winning the war
against methamphetamine abuse, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a
national gathering of public prosecutors in Portland on Monday.

Gonzales, the nation's top law-enforcement official, appeared at the
National District Attorneys Association summer convention to talk about the
toll methamphetamine abuse has taken and what is working to combat its spread.

In Washington, Gonzales has been mentioned as a leading candidate to
replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. In Portland,
Gonzales stuck to his methamphetamine message, took no questions and said
nothing about the high court in his address to more than 550 district
attorneys, their spouses and children.

To wipe out meth abuse, Gonzales said, local, state and federal
law-enforcement officials as well as private citizens must work together.

"We must get the neighbors involved," he said.

Gonzales said 58 percent of counties nationwide rank methamphetamine abuse
as their biggest problem. Last year 1.3 million people used meth, he said,
four times the number of people who used heroin.

The meth epidemic originated on the West Coast and has hit the country's
heartland -- states such as Iowa, Oklahoma, Missouri and Colorado --
particularly hard. Gonzales said the scourge has also moved into big cities.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant. It can be manufactured at
home by cooking over-the-counter cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine
and related substances with liquid fertilizer and starter fluid. It is
smoked, snorted or injected. It is considered the cheap alternative to
cocaine, in part because the euphoria lasts longer.

The illegal drug is taking a toll nationwide, causing misery for the
addicts, who often suffer psychosis and other side effects, and pain for
their families. Police uncover about 45 small meth labs each day. Since
2001, more than 50,000 meth labs have been shut down, 30 percent in homes
where children live. Gonzales said 15,000 children have had their lives
disrupted by meth-addicted parents in the past five years.

Gonzales told the prosecutors that the meth problem requires unconventional
solutions, some of which are already bringing results.

He said measures to restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine products such as
Sudafed in states hit hard by the meth epidemic have brought about dramatic
drops in addiction.Maine adopted a pseudoephedrine-control law this year,
but Maine and other Northeastern states have escaped the meth epidemic that
has swept through the rest of the country.

Last year police seized three small meth labs in Maine and only one so far
this year, said Roy McKinney, head of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.
Still, law-enforcement officials are worried that it is just a matter of
time before meth abuse moves into the region, he said.

Much of the meth is manufactured outside the United States, not in small
labs such as those shut down in Maine. Gonzales said Mexico makes 60
percent of the meth used in the United States.

He said China, which has supplied many of the pseudoephedrine products to
Mexico, recently agreed to share information with the United States and
will no longer send the products to Mexico unless Mexico can certify that
the recipients are legitimate.