Issue Position: Fighting Meth and Keeping our Communities Safe

Issue Position

Methamphetamine abuse hurts families, schools, businesses and communities in Northwest Washington and across the country. Once considered a West Coast drug, methamphetamine use has spread East in the past several years and now affects communities nationwide. As co-chair of the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamine, I work to provide local law enforcement, treatment professionals, and prevention experts with the tools they need to combat meth.

Communities can no longer fight this drug on their own. The time has come for the federal government to treat the methamphetamine problem with the same urgency and commitment that state and local governments and groups have been bringing to the issue for years. A three-pronged approach incorporating prevention, treatment, and law enforcement elements is needed to successfully fight the methamphetamine epidemic.

Cracking Down on Meth Production and Trafficking

In 2005, I worked to pass the first-ever comprehensive anti-meth legislation -- the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act. This landmark bill puts ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products (meth "precursors" needed to make the drug) behind the counter at pharmacies across the country; eliminates a loophole in federal law allowing the unlimited sale of pseudoephedrine pills sold in "blister packs"; holds major meth precursor exporters and importers accountable for their efforts to prevent meth production; and toughens federal penalties for meth traffickers and those who cook or deal meth in the presence of children.

Thanks in part to these provisions, law enforcement has made significant progress cracking down on meth production in our communities. As meth production has shifted from domestic, homegrown labs to "superlabs" in Mexico and elsewhere, we need to make sure that law enforcement has the tools they need to fight international meth trafficking as well as small-scale production in our communities.

Investing in Treatment and Prevention

If we fail to educate kids about the dangers of meth use and adequately treat those who are already addicted, we'll never abolish meth from our communities. I am committed to supporting treatment and prevention efforts that work, such as the Drug Courts Discretionary Grant Program. This program provides funds for local drug courts to sentence non-violent, drug-addicted offenders to treatment instead of jail time. Drug courts reduce crime and recidivism among drug-addicted offenders. They save taxpayers money by ending the cycle of repeated incarcerations for drug-related crimes. Drug courts work. For example, Snohomish County's drug court has a 94 percent success rate. Of the hundreds of people have graduated from Snohomish County's drug court to date, only around six percent have been arrested for committing new crimes.

Together with a bipartisan group of colleagues, I introduced the Meth Mouth Prevention and Community Recovery Act and the Meth Mouth Correctional Costs and Reentry Support Act to address one of the hidden costs of meth abuse - a disease called "meth mouth" that takes a terrible toll on the mouths of those who use the drug. Meth users as young as 18 years old can experience such extensive damage that they have no choice but to have all of their teeth removed. This legislation would help stop kids from using meth the first time by investing in education about meth mouth. It would also help our corrections system deal with the high cost of providing medical care for inmates with the disease.

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