BILL BATTLES GROWING PROBLEM

Prevention:

A Bill in the Minnesota Legislature Aims at Curbing the Meth Problem,
and Its Proponents Say They're Just Getting Started.

By the time hay fever attacks Minnesotans this summer, those with
allergies may need to ask a store clerk to reach behind the counter to
buy a box of Sudafed.

That's because Minnesota legislators -- with an eye toward stemming
the growing methamphetamine problem -- have put together a package of
laws to consider this session.

A proposal by Rep. Bob Gunther and Sen. Julie Rosen, Fairmont
Republicans, would lock cold and allergy medications behind a checkout
counter. The medications contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, used
to make meth in homemade labs. People who want to buy the drugs would
need to show identification to prove they're at least 18. The proposal
also would prohibit the sale of more than two packages at a time and
require store employees to report "suspicious" purchases of certain
drugs and household products to their managers, who in turn could
report it to police.

But Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch said the law could be
skirted and misses the point. The real threats are gangs, who bring in
up to 80 percent of Minnesota's meth from California and Mexico, he
said.

Still, Minnesota lawmakers say similar laws have had success in other
states, but they weren't enacted until meth use had reached
overwhelming proportions.

"Minnesota is learning from the mistakes of other states that didn't
respond to the problem until it was too late," Rosen said. "We are on
the cusp of an ugly epidemic here, if we aren't already in one."

Ingredients

In Iowa and Oklahoma, where meth is more widespread, state legislators
this year have proposed laws that would require pseudoephedrine buyers
to show photo ID and to sign for the drug.

Some Minnesota stores have set limits on the number of common meth
ingredients that a person can buy at once, said Carol Falkowski, a
research specialist for the Hazelden Foundation, a Minnesota-based
nonprofit chemical-dependency treatment facility.

That has changed only recently, said Sgt. Dennin Bauers, head of the
Lake Superior Drug Task Force. Duluth retailers were behind the curve,
he said. People used to come to Duluth from all over the state to buy
the precursor drugs in bulk, Bauers said.

Twin Ports convenience stores and pharmacies, including Target and
Wal-Mart, have set limits, a News Tribune sampling this week found.

The Minnesota Grocers Association, which represents 1,200 stores
statewide, for the most part backs the sales portion of the bill,
which would make it a misdemeanor to sell to someone younger than 18
and require that the drugs be locked in a display box.

However, the association's executive director, Nancy Christensen, said
the bill in its current form would be impossible to comply with. She
said there isn't enough space to put every product that contains
pseudoephedrine behind the counter.

Proponents of the bill, though, say putting the products behind the
counter also would end the problem of meth makers shoplifting
ingredients.

Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Special Agent Paul Stevens said the
bill's authors decided to target small-time makers because they do the
most damage in their communities. Those users tend to be hard-core
addicts, and it's where child abuse and neglect problems are found, he
said.

"The problem is expanding rapidly, and that expansion is not expected
to stop anytime soon, particularly if we do not act strongly," said
Deborah Durkin, a Minnesota Department of Health environmental health
specialist.

Duluthian Terry "Brian" Parsons, who was addicted to meth for 31
years, said government controls of the precursor drugs may have an
effect, if limited, on the drug trade.

The Gang Factor

Hatch said he doesn't believe such restrictions will reduce the
problem. Meth-making rings employ a method called "smurfing," in which
they use multiple people to buy the maximum number of items at
different stores, Hatch said.

"The laws that are being proposed... are a bit outmoded," Hatch said.
"Methamphetamine is largely perceived to be made in the trunk of a car
or somebody's kitchen -- that it's not mass distributed.

"Now gangs have gotten involved. What was once perceived to be a drug
in a trailer park is now easily accessible throughout the country and
state," he said.

"'If you want to address this issue, you gotta fund the Gang Strike
Force," Hatch said.

The Minnesota Gang Strike Force, which coordinates gang-crime
investigations, was created in 1997. It has 60 officers from police
departments statewide, including Duluth, where the regional
headquarters are; state and local money pays for the officers.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration cut most of its biannual $3.6
million budget to balance last year's budget deficit. Much of it was
later restored, but only temporarily. Hatch said he proposes fully
reinstating Gang Strike Force money.

This year, Commissioner of Public Safety Rich Stanek proposed
combining the Gang Strike Force with the Drug Advisory Task Force --
which distributes federal money to regional drug task forces across
the state, including those in Duluth and Virginia -- to save money.
But Hatch said the result would be fewer resources dedicated to drug
and gang investigations.

"It is not the time to scale back, but if we're not raising taxes and
not spending what we know we should, we have to cut back," said Rep.
Mary Murphy, DFL-Hermantown, who added that the task force issue has
not been decided.

In addition, some officers on the regional drug task forces, created
in 1990, fear their funding may not make it to next year because the
Bush administration didn't include a $704 million grant in its budget
proposal.

Wisconsin Approach

Three years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation
created a statewide methamphetamine initiative, with $1 million
annually in federal money. Minnesota doesn't have a statewide
initiative, although state law enforcement agents said they are trying
to arrange the federal money for one.

The Eau Claire, Wis.-based initiative coordinates 112 state and local
officers, which hunt down meth labs and clean them up, said Cindy
Giese, Department of Criminal Investigation special agent in charge.
It also established a public education program and a Superior
satellite office for the department. Meth cases in the five-county
Northwestern Wisconsin region are the priority of the office's two
special agents.

"There is an increased presence of meth (in Northwestern Wisconsin),
but we're not seeing a lot of lab activity," she said. "But that's
probably because they're seeing it in Minnesota."

Giese said the program, especially the education aspect, has helped
keep Wisconsin's meth problem in check. She said the program has made
presentations in every school in Northwestern Wisconsin.

In 1999, eight meth labs were discovered in Wisconsin; last year,
Wisconsin authorities found 111 meth labs. But that is almost four
times fewer than Minnesota found.

No anti-meth measures are before the Wisconsin Assembly, but last
year, lawmakers raised possession of meth from a misdemeanor to a
felony to put the law in line with Minnesota's.

Awareness

Minnesota's Rosen-Gunther bill is the brainchild of a Martin County
narcotics officer fed up with the meth problem there. The Minnesota
departments of Health, Agriculture, Transportation and Public Safety
have worked on it.

One aspect of the bill sets up a retail education fund. It would help
pay for a statewide publicity campaign to help store employees
recognize when people are making suspicious purchases and report them
to their bosses or to authorities.

Suspicious transactions are defined as those that would lead a
"reasonable person to believe that the substance is likely to be used
to illegally manufacture a controlled substance."

Fred Friedman, Northeastern Minnesota's chief public defender, takes
issue with the bill's suspicious-activity provisions.

"It's no secret that the backrooms of all the stores have these signs
up already that say, 'If you see someone buy this or that or this,
call us,' " he said. "They're trying to turn everybody into the Gestapo."

Other Midwest states have begun large-scale meth-educational campaigns
in recent years.

The bill's measures are "good first steps, but they are not solutions
to the problem," Murphy said. "Until people become aware and see how
the meth creeps up on their community, there's not a whole lot you can
do."

Murphy and many drug-rehabilitation experts said what's needed are
education programs of every kind, for as many segments of the
population as possible.