COVERING A SCOURGE

It seems this newspaper could open a bureau devoted to covering
methamphetamine.

Many of our front pages have carried stories about meth busts, and we
have editorialized on the matter a few times already.

The issue deserves the coverage.

Meth manufacturing, distribution and use are crimes. That's reason
enough to cover law enforcement efforts to curb all three.

More than crimes, behaviors revolving around meth constitute a
lifestyle. The conversions of rooms in homes into meth labs, and the
veil of secrecy that surrounds meth constitute a lifestyle. What we
have is a growing counterculture.

That term is hip now, a romanticized concept four decades after the
60's generation stood against the establishment and espoused the
experience of love and spirit and the use of drugs to enhance the
experience.

But the word counterculture as applied to the meth lifestyle is a
dark, sinister term.

It speaks of behavior that is counter to the law.

Counter to family values.

Counter to public safety.

Counter to health.

The flower children flourished in the light of what they saw as a new
kind of freedom.

People involved in meth live shadowy lives, trapped in corner where
the light of discovery can mean a prison of bars.

Drug involvment can, under new law, mean the loss of children who are
taken into protective custody away from hazardous materials and
exposure to an unhealthy lifestyle.

Meth labs can blow up and leave behind waste that only certified
handlers can clean up. Neighbors are exposed to harmful fumes.

Meth use has detrimental effects on the bran and nervous system.

And meth makers and users know better. Their unwillingness and
inability to stop reveal the power of profit and addiction.

Law enforcement officers are doing a grand job of sniffing out and
closing meth labs.

They're getting some help and more is on the way. Storekeepers
sometime call the police when a customer buys a large quantity of
materals used in meth manufacturing. Buy a gallon of iodine, and
Sheriff Bradley's phone may ring. And soon, a new law will require
store clerks to blow the whistle when customers make suspicious purchases.

It's going to take more then that.

Virginia's EXILE program mandates a minimum of five years'
imprisonment for felons who have guns, for anyone with a gun on school
property and plans to use it or who brandish it, and have a gun along
with Schedule I and II drugs or a pound a marijuana to sell.

A similar program may be needed to punish meth users. The dangers
surround meth manufacturing are great enough to the public to warrant
a long prison sentence on the first conviction of any level of
involvement with the drug, from its use to its creation.

The stakes will have to be set high with harsh penalties that
outweight the profit and pleasure of meth.

Otherwise, and one police officer recently said, it won't stop until
something blows up. Maybe not even then.

Meanwhile, we will continue to cover meth busts, publish names and
photos of the arrested and follows the cases to their conclusion in
court.

No other work we have to do is more important than keeping this
scourge on the front pages as law enforcement battles to stop it.