Pot times July 17, 2005

The Growing Meth Problem

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1128/a05.html
Newshawk: www.ohiopatient.net

Pubdate: Mon, 11 Jul 2005
Source: Blade, The (Toledo, OH)
Copyright: 2005 The Blade
Contact: letters@theblade.com
Website: http://www.toledoblade.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/48

THE GROWING METH PROBLEM

While the Bush Administration targets its drug fighting efforts on marijuana, methamphetamine is ruining lives, families, and communities.  Yes, marijuana use among teenagers is a problem.  But officials nationwide say methamphetamine is the foremost law enforcement plague, and the only way to decrease its impact is to give it the aggressive attention it deserves. 

Anyone unfamiliar with the drug need only picture what crack cocaine did as it tightened its grip on American communities in the 1980s and 1990s.  Many who used crack abandoned their families, lost their jobs and homes, and became criminals.  Neighborhoods became strongholds for drug lords, and prisons and jails quickly filled to overflowing.  Methamphetamine has hit rural areas hard and now is wreaking the same havoc in cities. 

Drug enforcement agencies don't stand guard at the borders to try to keep out methamphetamine.  Its ingredients can be found in cold medicines or on farms, which explains why the problem is so widespread in rural communities.  The chemicals involved can be mixed almost anywhere, and they are toxic and flammable.  The drug, which is extremely addictive, is injected, smoked, or inhaled. 

One reason drug control efforts have suffered is because the government has redirected resources to domestic security and the war on terrorism.  The administration proposes cutting $804 million in drug-fighting money from the 2006 federal budget.  That would be a dangerous mistake. 

Community officials want federal legislators to restore that funding, much of which can be used to fight methamphetamine and to treat the growing numbers of its users. 

Societal problems caused by this drug already have reached epidemic proportions and, unless federal officials pay closer attention and restore much-needed funding, they will get worse. If so, Washington

will have to take a big share of the blame.