OFFICIALS ACROSS U.S. DESCRIBE DRUG WOES

Local officials from across the country yesterday declared
methamphetamine the nation's leading law enforcement scourge - a more
insidious drug problem than cocaine - and blamed it for crowding
jails and fueling increases in theft and violence, as well as for a
host of social welfare problems.

Officials from the National Association of Counties, releasing
results from a survey of 500 local officials nationwide, argued that
Washington's focus on terrorism and domestic security had diverted
money and attention from the methamphetamine problem in the states.

They pleaded with lawmakers to restore financing for an $804 million
drug-fighting program that the group said had been proposed for
elimination in the 2006 federal budget, and said the Bush
administration had focused its drug-fighting efforts too much on
marijuana and not enough on methamphetamine.

"This is a national problem that requires national leadership,"
Angelo Kyle, the president of the association and a member of the
Board of Commissioners in Lake County, Ill., north of Chicago, said
at a news conference in Washington that was called to draw attention
to the problem.

While methamphetamine has begun to move into some cities, it has
particularly devastated rural areas in the last several years. It is
cheap and easy to make using chemicals commonly found in cold
medicine or on farms, and makeshift production laboratories have
sprung up in barns and houses. Officials said yesterday that they had
even discovered small portable laboratories in suitcases.

The ingredients are highly toxic and highly flammable, often
resulting in serious explosions. And the drug itself, which is
smoked, inhaled or injected, is extremely addictive, producing a high
that lasts several hours and leading to binges that often last days
or even weeks.

Of 500 law enforcement agencies in 45 states, 87 percent reported
increases in methamphetamine-related arrests in the last three years,
and 62 percent reported increases in laboratory seizures.

Fifty-eight percent said methamphetamine was their largest drug
problem. Nineteen percent said cocaine was, 17 percent said marijuana
and 3 percent said heroin.

The problem is seen as particularly bad in the Southwest, where 76
percent of counties surveyed said methamphetamine was their largest
drug problem; in the Pacific Northwest, where 75 percent of those
surveyed said it was; and in the Upper Midwest, where 67 percent of
county officials declared methamphetamine their worst drug problem.

Seventy percent of counties reported increases in robberies and
burglaries because of methamphetamine; 62 percent reported increases
in domestic violence; 53 percent reported an increase in assaults;
and 27 reported an increase in identity theft.

Half the counties surveyed said one in five inmates were in jail
because of methamphetamine crimes. Many counties reported that half
their jail populations were incarcerated because of methamphetamine.

The officials said that reports of child abuse had increased as well,
with many children neglected while their parents binged and then
slept off the high for several days.

"Meth abuse is ruining lives and families and filling our jails,"
said Bill Hansell, president-elect of the association and a
commissioner from Umatilla County, Ore., which has led that state in
laboratory seizures.

The officials called yesterday for the restoration of the federal
Justice Assistance Program, the $804 million program that helped
finance drug-fighting efforts between different jurisdictions. "With
the elimination of that program, that really stifles us from being
able to combat this epidemic drug," Mr. Kyle said.

The officials also called for more money for treatment and said the
Bush administration should shift its antidrug efforts, which have
emphasized preventing marijuana use among teenagers.

"We're not saying that that's misplaced or that they shouldn't be
doing this," said Larry Naake, executive director of the association,
"but we think that there is now an epidemic that needs to get their
attention because it's just as serious, if not more serious, because
of the overall consequences of it."