KILGORE PROPOSES 10 YEARS IN PRISON FOR METHAMPHETAMINE MAKERS

In the walkup to his campaign for governor next year, Attorney General
Jerry W. Kilgore wants to crack down on a virulent drug crime plaguing his
home turf of Southwest Virginia.

The Republican has rolled out a major proposal that calls on the
GOP-controlled General Assembly to double the minimum penalty to 10 years
in prison for manufacturers of methamphetamine.

Currently, offenders face five to 40 years behind bars.

Additionally, Kilgore wants lawmakers, at their session beginning Jan. 12,
to create a separate offense, also punishable by 10 to 40 years, for
producing the drug in the presence of a child. The punishment would be
tacked on to a manufacturing sentence.

The attorney general also wants to establish guidelines to clean up the
manufacturing sites, which present toxic dangers for neighbors. Cleanup
costs would be paid for by the offenders.

Describing his package as comprehensive, Kilgore argued that it would
significantly "increase our efforts to make Virginia meth-free."

"We rarely see cocaine being manufactured in Virginia," Kilgore said. "We
do, however, see meth manufactured here and with increasing frequency."

"The fact is that while cocaine is manufactured in Bogota," he argued,
"meth is more likely manufactured in places like Bristol or Botetourt."

"Meth" laboratories have become a flourishing cottage industry in the
Southwest as well as the Shenandoah Valley and, some predict, the illegal
producers threaten to make their addictive drug in other parts of the state.

The industry is growing in the commonwealth, Kilgore said, and
law-enforcement efforts are hampered because some of the components used in
its manufacture, including drain cleaners and farm fertilizers, are legal.

Last year, Kilgore said, police and sheriffs discovered and dismantled 34
labs. But the number has mushroomed to78 this year, with more than half of
them in Southwest and Western Virginia.

State Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, who accompanied Kilgore at a
news conference, suggested that the drug scourge may soon spread to the
rest of the state. "In Southwest Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley,
we've been getting a preview of what is heading our way," Obenshain said.
He will sponsor parts of the plan in the Virginia Senate.

Del. Charles "Bill" Carrico Sr., R-Grayson, a former state trooper who will
carry the legislation in the House, said he favors the plan to "put more
people behind bars longer."

Obenshain said methamphetamine affects "an entirely new population of drug
users - factory and agriculture workers."