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| | Meth laws having effect, AG says
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau FAYETTEVILLE - Laws to curb supplies of homemade methamphetamine are working, largely to the benefit of innocent bystanders, Attorney General Mike Beebe said in Fayetteville on Tuesday. Users of the illegal drug are finding it more difficult to supply their habit at home, Beebe told the Downtown Fayetteville Rotary Club at its lunch meeting Tuesday in the Fayetteville Radisson Hotel. Higher-grade methamphetamine from large-scale, out-of-state suppliers is moving in to fill the vacuum, he said. Beebe supported laws passed in the last legislative session to restrict the sale of cold medicines needed for illegal methamphetamine cooking. Oklahoma authorities passed a similar law a year earlier, and is now reporting an 81 percent reduction in illegal drug laboratory-related cases. "Oklahoma officials say the law has run the meth cookers off," Beebe said. "Of course, a few minutes ago your sheriff was complaining that it ran them off to Northwest Arkansas," but now the cold medication laws are expected to have a similar effect. Home-grown methamphetamine is a particularly heavy burden on law enforcement agencies because of the clean up requirements, Beebe said. The illegal laboratories leave residues of hazardous chemicals that are a danger to those in the building. The result was that law enforcement officers were spending the bulk of their time and resources finding, convicting and cleaning up after local methamphetamine makers while the more serious threat of larger, more sophisticated producers received less attention than it should have, Beebe said. Also, the methamphetamine production process is dangerous. Often, children are involved in accidents in these home laboratories, he said. "This is one of the most debilitating drugs we've ever seen," Beebe said. There are cases of people becoming addicted after one use, he said. Beebe cited one case where the mother of a child left Arkansas Childrens' Hospital to get a fix while the child was in risky surgery after swallowing sulfuric acid, one of the ingredients for methamphetamine. As methamphetamine becomes less available, dealing with addiction "is going to be a problem we're going to have to face," Beebe said. "It takes a longer period to get off of this drug than others. A 30- or 40-day treatment program isn't going to do it. Our real fear is that some alternate drug will appear." On other issues, Beebe talked briefly about the appeal to the state Supreme Court by the Rogers School District and others to reopen the Lake View school funding case. Beebe's office defended the state in that appeal. He told the audience Tuesday that the "real crux of the issue is that no "COLA," or cost of living adjustment, was included in the state's school funding formula in the first year of the two-year budget cycle. Beyond that, Beebe said that many of the districts suing were "in truth, overpaid" in the last budget cycle. |
