Pubdate: Fri, 06 Jul 2007
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2007 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/contactus.pl
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/83
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

IN THE WAR ON DRUGS, ONE VICTORY

Action by states and the Congress has resulted in a sharp decrease in 
the number of US meth labs.

Virginia's attorney general calls methamphetamine "probably the 
ugliest drug...in 40 years." Many other law-enforcement officials 
agree. So it's heartening that state and federal effort targeting 
these illegal uglies is hitting a bull's eye - at least in reducing 
the US supply of "meth."

Since the early 1990s, a meth resurgence has spawned thousands of 
hidden labs in motel rooms, barns, and homes in rural and suburban 
America. But the number of these meth kitchens is radically 
declining, thanks to stepped-up law enforcement and laws that 
restrict the supply of a key ingredient.

Meth is known to be quickly addictive, with severe health 
repercussions. But it also has a social ripple effect. Children of 
users may be abused as the user turns violent, or neglected for days 
during the user's crash period. Kids and neighbors are also 
endangered by the potentially explosive manufacturing process, which 
produces five pounds of toxic waste for every pound of meth.

As the meth outbreak gathered steam, though, so did many states, 
followed by the US Congress. Awareness, training, and shared 
databases helped local and federal law enforcement, and many states 
passed laws restricting the supply of the key meth ingredient 
pseudoephedrine, found in cold medicines. Last year, Congress brought 
uniformity to those laws by requiring pharmacies to move the 
medicines behind the counter and limit the amount customers can buy 
in a day. Customers must also show an ID.

The results are striking. According to the federal Drug Enforcement 
Agency (DEA), the number of lab sites seized in the US has dropped by 
58 percent since the peak in 2003 - to 7,347 last year. This is an 
instance in which laws worked.

Would that this were the end of America's meth challenge, though.

The vacuum left by the steep decline in the home-cooked stuff is 
being filled by meth smuggled in from well-supplied labs in Mexico, 
which account for about 80 percent of the US market. Success with the 
US labs hints that in the drug fight, it is perhaps easier to go 
after the small fry than the big fish. (Indeed, an effective method 
to discourage theft of the narcotic-based pain reliever OxyContin is 
to encourage pharmacies to lock their supply in a safe - yet theft is 
only a small source of this abused drug compared with the big, open 
pipeline of the Internet.)

Meth use is a mixed picture. It's down significantly among teens, 
most likely because they're scared by what they hear about it. But 
the number of Americans who have used meth has dropped only slightly, 
according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Other data 
show meth spreading to the Eastern US and urban areas.

Even if meth use overall appears steady, the big dropoff in labs 
frees local law enforcement from the costly, time consuming, and 
dangerous work of shutting down and cleaning up domestic meth labs.

That means they should be in a better position to focus on meth from 
Mexico, which also has the attention of the DEA. That agency has 
trained more than 2,000 officers in Mexico in how to shut down and 
clean up meth labs and is also working internationally to stop the 
diversion of chemicals to these labs.

The war on drugs has many fronts, but at least on one of them, 
there's been real progress. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake