Oregon's two U.S. senators renewed their pledge to fight methamphetamine Tuesday, despite proposed federal funding cuts and a shift in drug-control priorities at the White House.
U.S. Sens. Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden lauded state and local efforts to combat the illegal stimulant known as meth while accepting some credit for Oregon's rapidly disappearing meth labs. But more work is needed, the senators said.
"We don't want anyone to think this is a mission accomplished in regards to methamphetamine," Wyden said.
The Democratic senator said the next step is opposing $1.4 billion in cuts to state and local law enforcement programs under the president's budget. Wyden said he also planned to dissuade the White House Drug Policy Office from a focus on prescription drug abuse rather than meth.
"Meth is not going to go away on its own," Wyden said. "We are going to have to be on the offensive."
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Both senators seemed sobered by a high school student's testimony that she saw meth on campus last week and would have no trouble buying it in Medford for $20. Smith and Wyden acknowledged that the government, while nearly eliminating home labs, hasn't stopped the international supply of meth.
"Clearly this goes beyond our country," Smith said.
A Mexican trafficking group operated the largest meth lab in Oregon history near Brownsville, U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut told the group. Eleven defendants were sentenced last year in that case.
Just one lab has surfaced in Oregon so far this year, she said. Statistics compiled by the Oregon Department of Justice show that the number of meth-making operations, including labs, dump sites and chemical stockpiles, found statewide dipped to 63 in 2006, down from 179 in 2005.
In Jackson County, seizures dropped to 6 in 2005 from 17 in 2004. Six labs also were shut down last year, two years after the Oregon Legislature first passed laws to regulate cold pills containing pseudoephedrine, a key meth ingredient. Pills containing pseudoephedrine have been available only by prescription since July 2006.
Rob Bovett, an assistant county counsel for Lincoln County and a national leader in the fight against methamphetamine, told the audience that state and federal governments were initially slow to respond to the threat. But that has changed in recent years.
Bovett, co-founder of the Oregon Alliance for Drug Endangered Children, said the 2005 Oregon Legislature supported virtually everything his group had sought. Chief among its actions was the prescription measure, which made Oregon at the time only the second state to enact such a requirement.
Bovett said the measure was never intended to be a solution for the meth epidemic.
"We were not trying to get rid of meth, we were trying to get rid of meth labs," he said.
Now advocates in the fight against meth have set their sights on shutting off the illegal flow of pseudoephedrine to meth makers. The drug is legally produced as a cold medicine in eight factories in three countries — Germany, India and China. But the quantities produced often far exceed the demand for cold remedies.
Bovett noted that in 2004, Mexico imported 224 metric tons of pseudoephedrine, while its need for the medicine was put at about 70 metric tons. Federal pressure and cooperation from the Mexican government helped reduce the imports to 76 metric tons in 2006.
Bovett said Germany and India have worked with the U.S. government to curb illegal exports, but that China has been less cooperative.
Nevertheless, with local meth labs largely shut down and the supply of pseudoephedrine more carefully monitored, Bovett said there is real hope of curbing the crisis.
"I think we can do to methamphetamine in this decade what we did to quaaludes in the '80s," he said. "We can eliminate it."
Reach reporter Sarah Lemon at 776-4487 or at slemon@mailtribune.com.Mail Tribune Editor Bob Hunter contributed to this report.
