NYT:WH Searches for Balance in Drug Fight(focus has been on pot, not meth)

[DeepModem Mom]

White House Searches for Balance in Drug Fight
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: August 19, 2005


NASHVILLE, Aug. 18 - Seeking to defuse a growing confrontation with members of Congress and local officials over drug policy, the Bush administration dispatched the attorney general and two other top officials here on Thursday to promise that the government was committed to battling methamphetamine....

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The administration also vowed to make $16.2 million available in grants for treatment.

For several years the White House has focused the national antidrug strategy on marijuana, arguing that it is the most widely used drug, particularly among high school students, and can be a gateway to more serious drug use. Officials have continued to emphasize that in recent months, even as law enforcement officials across the country pleaded for more help fighting meth, a drug made using chemicals commonly found in cold medicine or on farms.

But local officials and members of Congress from both parties have argued increasingly loudly that meth, which is highly addictive, is the real problem. They say the administration has virtually ignored the problem despite the devastation it has caused in many parts of the middle of the country - increasing crime, crowding jails and leaving more children neglected or abandoned....

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The comments here were remarkably different from ones earlier this summer when a spokesman for the drug policy office told Newsweek that people were "crying meth." In addition, other officials have said it makes sense to focus on marijuana, because there are about 15 million users of it, compared with about 1 million users of meth....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/19/politics/19drugs.html?hp&ex=1124424000&en=827a7b098481aac0&ei=5094&partner=homepage