Update [2005-7-10 22:55:14 by susanhu]: The NYT just posted this story: “A Drug Scourge [Meth] Creates Its Own Form of Orphan.”

I just read “Methamphetamine: The real drug war,” by the Seattle P.I. editorial board. It reminded me of my friend’s neighbor who until last month gardened frantically all night, her too-bright yard lights glaring into neighbors’ bedroom windows. After putting in a shift at Safeway, she’d rush about her yard, tending hundreds of flowers crowded in beds and pots. One day, she and her son (and drug partner) were carted off to jail, charged with selling and using meth. Luckily, our kindly county prosecutor took in her orphaned dog and cat.

Given that law enforcement officials nationwide name meth as their #1 problem — “No other drug was even close” — it’s astonishing that the Bush administration calls it a “problem but not an epidemic”:

Last month, [Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wa.)], with his experience in the King County Sheriff’s Office, argued face to face with a powerful congressional Republican during a floor fight to restore funding to help police around the country. Reichert lost. A day later, however, Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., came back and said he had found a way to protect some of the police funding the administration wanted to cut.


Today’s WaPo notes that “the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy [recently] restated its stance that marijuana remains the nation’s most substantial drug problem.” WTF? More below:

Dave Murray, a policy analyst for the White House, said he understands that the meth problem moving through the nation is serious and substantial. But he disagrees that it has become an epidemic.


“This thing is burning, and because it’s burning, we’re going to put it out,” he said. “But we can’t turn our back on other threats.”


Sheriff Jon R. Marvel of western Indiana’s Vigo County estimates that 80 percent of the inmates in his county’s jail in Terre Haute are held on meth-related charges.


He also points to an operating budget that has risen from $800,000 in 1999 to about $3.4 million last year to illustrate how policing meth has used county resources. (WaPo)


I’m staggered by the idiocy of the Bush administration. I expect their idiocy regularly in military, foreign policy and many domestic matters. But to downplay the meth epidemic in this country is shocking.


What can we do about this huge problem?

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