The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Emlimination Act

THE COMBAT METHAMPHETAMINE EPIDEMIC ELIMINATION ACT -- (House of Representatives - February 28, 2006)

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, much of what we do here in Congress is very contentious. Our 1-minutes and 5-minutes tend to reflect a lot of those deep divisions. And while we sometimes share basic views, I think that they get carried to extremes sometimes on House debate.

I want talk about something we have actually done in a bipartisan way. We often hear that we do not do anything here in a bipartisan fashion and that all we can agree on are naming post offices. But this week when the PATRIOT Act passes, inside the PATRIOT Act is the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Elimination Act, the largest and most comprehensive legislation ever done by a United States Congress on methamphetamine.

Nearly 20 years ago there were some attempts to regulate some of what was then called "crank" and some variations of methamphetamine that had already started in Asia and had been in Hawaii and had trickled in, even a decade ago or a little longer, into the West Coast, in Oregon and Washington State and California, but had not really hit the United States in full force.

Then over the last several years, Members of Congress have been coming here frustrated with the fact that our administration, from the Republican standpoint and from the Nation's, our present administration had not been responding aggressively enough to the Methamphetamine Act, and how to address the control of pseudoephedrine in the United States, as well as the ephedra and pseudoephedra that was coming into the United States that was making and going into the mom-and-pop meth labs, as well as the crystal meth.

Senators TALENT and FEINSTEIN introduced a bill on the Senate side to do what many States were doing, and that is, put pseudoephedrine behind the counter. Majority Whip BLUNT introduced similar legislation in the House.

In addition, Members from both parties introduced many different bills. Congresswoman Hooley and Representative Kennedy, in particular, led the effort to try to go beyond just putting something behind the counter, but to try to regulate international legislation; and their bills were incorporated in a more comprehensive bill that then also absorbed the Blunt-Talent-Feinstein bill.

This all was attached to the PATRIOT Act. And I would have just as soon had a free debate here on the House floor and dealt with this, but part of the thing is that as we moved this meth bill through, we came under tremendous counterattack from the pharmaceutical industry that did not want any limitations on pseudoephedrine in the United States.

We came under heavy attack from the China lobby and the Mexico lobby that did not want the threat of decertification on them if they did not cooperate on controlling pseudoephedrine.

What this bill will do is limit the daily purchase, it will limit the monthly purchase, require purchasers to show ID and sign in a log book.

Therefore, as Indiana passes a law, people will no longer be able to go to Michigan and Ohio to get their pseudoephedrine and continue to kind of supply the raw material for all of the mom-and-pop labs, 900 last year in the State of Indiana, whereas Ohio only had 300, which, by the way, was a growth from 30.

But we go beyond just the control of pseudoephedrine and the few remaining States that did not have that control. We closed loopholes in existing import-export and wholesale regulations, not only the main markets, but the spot market. There are basically only nine plants in the entire world that manufacture pseudoephedrine. We need China and India and several of the European countries, and the Czech Republic recently closed down their plant; we need to regulate this, know how many quantities are coming through. We need to do better control on the southwest border, where much of what pours in from other nations in the world, Mexico basically puts a minimum of 40 tons of raw pseudoephedrine beyond what they use in the United States that is used in mom-and-pop labs.

We also try to address not only the precursors for the mom-and-pop labs, but what immediately moves in behind. As we have seen in Oklahoma, as we have seen in many other States, and even in my State where the mom-and-pop labs go down, the crystal meth comes in behind.

The crystal meth is even more potent to the individuals. It is not as dangerous to the environment. It is not as dangerous to our local law enforcement people. You do not see explosions in homes that kill and maim little kids. But to the individual user, crystal meth is even more damaging than the homemade meth, because it is pure and even more addictive. And this often moves in behind.

So then the treatment programs are stressed, the highways still have people on it, that is why in addition to the behind-the-counter, we have got to go to the raw pseudoephedrine that is going into the crystal meth labs in Mexico and some of the super labs that are still left in the West.

We have increased and toughened penalties against meth traffickers and smugglers. We authorized the meth hot spots program, something the administration continues to try to zero out, and we have never had it authorized.

This authorizes that program which makes it much harder for the administration to try to eliminate it, as well as increases funding in the authorizing for drug courts, for the drug endangered children program and programs to assist pregnant women addicted to meth.

This is an historic step. When the Senate passes the PATRIOT Act tomorrow, there will be lots of debate about the PATRIOT Act and all of that. But inside that bill is the most significant bipartisan effort we have ever done in the United States Congress on methamphetamine.

And I am thrilled that it is finally going to become law after languishing and battling and watching all of the different interests try to defeat this. This is a triumph for bipartisanship. It is a triumph for locals who came to us and asked this to be done. It is a triumph to all of our narcotics officers around the United States and all of the drug treatment people around the United States and prevention people who have been saying, when are you going to do something on meth? Well, this week we are.

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