Deputy drug czar says methamphetamine fight turns corner

ST. LOUIS -- The war on meth will shift from busting clandestine rural labs to fighting shipments of the drug from Mexico, White House deputy drug czar Scott Burns said Wednesday during a stop in St. Louis.

Burns said that as he hears success stories from around the country, and with a new federal law to monitor the sale of meth's key ingredient, the fight against meth needs to be refocused.

"We have to start shifting our intelligence to target the traffickers and the cartels and the couriers in the same fashion that we do heroin, cocaine and marijuana," said Burns, whose official title is deputy director of the National Drug Control Policy office.

Almost a dozen law enforcement officers and others were honored Wednesday at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's St. Louis field office for their work to stop the spread of methamphetamines in Missouri. Burns was in Wichita, Kan., Tuesday presenting similar awards while NDCP director John Walters was in Des Moines, Iowa, praising that state's success in battling meth.

The awards highlight the reduction of meth labs in Missouri by almost 50 percent, which was helped by last year's state law to control the sale of pseudoephedrine used to make the drug.

A federal anti-meth law to limit access to those same over-the-counter medications is expected to be signed by President Bush by Friday.

Burns said a better job can be done in limiting the amount of pseudoephedrine that reaches Mexico and the U.S. State Department and others need to work with drug companies to monitor those supply chains.

Federal prosecutor Catherine Hanaway said Franklin and Jefferson counties in Missouri led the nation in the number of lab busts in 2002 and 2003.

Even though labs are expected to be less abundant in the coming years, addicts will still find a way to feed their addiction, Hanaway said.

The number of meth users treated at substance abuse clinics has more than quadrupled from 1993 to 2003, according to a report released last week by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"We will increasingly see, and we have already seen, the same distribution lines that are being used for cocaine also be used for methamphetamine," Hanaway said.

Burns said funding for anti-meth efforts will not likely be as abundant as in years past.

President Bush's 2007 budget has called for the zeroing out of grants for task forces that fight meth, according to Frank Till, president of the Missouri Narcotic Officers' Association.

"This war against drugs takes money," Till said. "We are facing a 55 percent decrease in grants across the nation. It's imperative that these task forces be funded."