U.S. Congresswoman Darlene Hooley recently announced two pieces of legislation intended to attack the national and international sources of most of the methamphetamine problem that has been a scourge for Oregon for several years and has recently become a national one as well.
"We need a full-out assault on methamphetamine," Hooley said at a joint Federal-State Informational Proceeding on Methamphetamine she hosted March 1 in Salem with state Attorney General Hardy Myers and Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney.
Oregon, Hooley said, "has been a leader in trying to get rid" of meth, but the battle cannot be won only on the local level. Hooley's bills call for an investment of $1 billion annually into treatment, education and prevention services to fight meth in the states and areas where it is at its worst.
The bills would also tighten federal controls on the sale and possession of pseudoephedrine products and other precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of the drug. And they would enhance legal penalties for people who make meth where children are present.
Lincoln County Assistant Counsel Rob Bovett, legal counsel for the Oregon Narcotics Enforcement Association, was pleased with the bills. He told the News-Times they are "an important compliment to the efforts we are making here in Oregon." Bovett was the lead figure in drafting a bill, now before the state legislature, to permanently require pseudoephedrine-containing cold products used in making the drug be sold only from behind pharmacy windows, and only upon presentation of photo identification of the purchaser.
But the Oregon legislation would only address small-scale meth labs. "The mom-and-pop labs account for only 20 percent of the meth, but they are 96 percent of the meth lab problem," Bovett said. Those labs produce toxic pollutants, constitute health and safety problems for landlords, police officers, and "most especially," Bovett says, "for the children of people making the meth."
Hooley's bills would pick up where Bovett's state-level legislation ends, by attacking the meth problem at the national and international levels.
Unlike heroin and cocaine, meth making starts with basic ingredients that are legal and openly manufactured. That makes the meth epidemic, "uniquely vulnerable to effective international control of pseudoephedrine," Bovett said. "That is why I am so excited about the 'Methamphetamine Precursor Control Act' being introduced by Congresswoman Hooley."
The MPCA has provisions to directly attack the diverted international pseudoephedrine that feeds the super labs, including empowering the Drug Enforcement Administration to inspect transaction records of all foreign companies engaged in the manufacture or sale of bulk pseudoephedrine. And it provides for suspension of the right to export products into the U.S. for those companies that fail or refuse to provide those records. These provisions will allow the DEA to track international pseudoephedrine shipments, and prevent diversion to the super labs.
Methamphetamine, while not new, emerged in crisis proportions first on the West Coast, and has been moving east for the past few years, making it an ever-growing national problem, he added.
Oregon Senators Ron Wyden (D) and Gordon Smith (R) recently joined with other Senators to sponsor the "Combat Meth Act of 2005" in the Senate. On Feb. 24, the two senators spoke at an Oregon Alliance for Drug Endangered Children conference in Beaverton. This bill would authorize $15 million to provide training to state and local prosecutors and law enforcement agents for the fight against meth. Of that, $3 million would be set aside for rural communities.
And it would expand the Meth Hot Spots program to include personnel and equipment for enforcement, prosecution and cleanup of meth labs.
Over the past two years, Hooley has secured $500,000 for the Lincoln Interagency Narcotics Team, but, as the law currently is written, the money cannot go to salaries for specially trained anti-meth officers - probably the single most pressing need this county and many others face. This bill would change that.
This bill, too, would require pseudoephedrine, as a controlled substance, be sold only by a licensed pharmacist upon presentation of photo ID and signature in a purchasers log. And it would authorize $2.5 million for 2006 and for 2006 for meth addiction treatment.
The federal bills, Bovett said, "will pack one heck of a federal one-two punch" in the effort against meth.
Hooley's Meth Precursor Control Act would give the DEA the authority to inspect records of all foreign companies that sell pseudoephedrine, including the factories that manufacture it and those of foreign importers and wholesalers. It would empower DEA to impose quota restrictions on imports of pseudoephedrine if the agency finds it necessary.
The bill would set up a national Meth Watch program to educate retailers about the dangers of the drug and how to prevent pseudoephedrine and other precursors from being bought or stolen by meth makers. It would encourage retailers to put products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter to prevent theft and deter purchase by criminals.
The bill would have DEA automatically rescind a pseudoephedrine dealer's registration to distribute if it has been sent four warning letters for misbehavior; currently, warnings are followed by no enforcement activity.
Hooley's Comprehensive Methamphetamine Response Act would enable the governor of any state to ask the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy to designate the state, or a portion of it, a High-Intensity Methamphetamine Abuse and Trafficking Area, based on a series of factors. Areas already listed as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area for meth would receive priority review. Once a governor's petition has been accepted, the state would be required to develop a Comprehensive Methamphetamine Response Plan within six months, addressing enforcement, treatment, prevention and precursor controls.
Once designated, the state would be eligible for funds to help implement the plan. The funds would be provided annually for five years. After that, the Office of National Drug Control Policy would evaluate the designation to see if it should be extended. The bill would provide $1 billion per year for the work.