METH BATTLE HAS INTERNATIONAL TIES

SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- The Midwest's battle against methamphetamine has
international ramifications, the director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration said Wednesday.

At a 13-state summit on efforts to fight the highly addictive drug, Asa
Hutchinson said it has been discovered that international drug gangs supply
many of the materials used to make methamphetamine.

Proceeds from some of those sales have found their way to the Middle East
and into the hands of terrorist organizations, he said.

At the same time, the war against terrorism has helped in the battle
against drugs because security is much tighter at airports and U.S.
borders, Hutchinson told about 200 state and federal officials attending
the three-day summit sponsored by the Midwest Governor's Conference.

"Meth is a national priority because it is the greatest drug problem that
faces rural America," Hutchinson said. "And we have not yet rolled back the
tide on this problem."

Strategies for law enforcement, meth lab cleanup, education about the drug,
treatment of addicts and protection of their children were being discussed
at the summit by Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns and officials from 12 other
states in the governors' conference.

Often called the "poor man's cocaine," methamphetamine can be made in
bathtubs, on kitchen stoves and in car trunks from commercially available
chemicals. It normally contains ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, found in
over-the-counter cold medications.

Hutchinson gave the keynote address at the summit, which also was sponsored
by the National Crime Prevention Council and the community policing section
of the U.S. Justice Department.

Similar conferences have been held across the Midwest since at least the
mid-1990s as methamphetamine use expanded from the West and Southwest into
the Midwest and the East.

It is a difficult drug to stop because it is so addictive, inexpensive and
easy to obtain. In 1996, one methamphetamine lab was seized in Nebraska. So
far this year, more than 170 meth labs have been found in the state.