[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 28 (Tuesday, March 7, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H600-H601]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        METHAMPHETAMINE EPIDEMIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, this evening, legislation to reauthorize 
the PATRIOT Act came before the House, and something attached to the 
PATRIOT Act that sometimes has escaped notice is the fact that 
legislation to address the methamphetamine epidemic spreading across 
the country was included.
  This legislation provides a uniform, national standard for the 
regulation of precursor chemicals which are necessary to the 
manufacture of methamphetamine. Currently, we have a hodgepodge of 
State laws and regulations. This provides a national standard that is 
uniform and this is very important.
  Key provisions are as follows: limits the amount of pseudoephedrine 
sales, and pseudoephedrine has to be an ingredient to make 
methamphetamine. They cannot do it without it.
  It requires that pseudoephedrine and other precursor chemicals are 
sold from behind the counter. In many cases now you can go in and pick 
them up.
  Requires purchasers of these chemicals to show I.D. and sign a 
logbook.
  Restricts Internet sales of precursor chemicals.
  So if we look at this, Mr. Speaker, we see that in 1990 there were 
only two States that had 20 clandestine meth labs each. California had 
20 or more and Texas had 20 or more. Then you see

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the spread of this epidemic. By 2004, practically the whole Nation was 
blanketed by small meth labs. The only exception would be in the New 
England States in the Northeast, and that is rapidly being taken over 
as well.
  So this is something that is spreading rapidly. However, it is 
important to realize that 70 to 80 percent of the methamphetamine in 
the United States is now coming from super labs, mostly in Mexico, in 
the form of crystal meth. So these small, clandestine meth labs are no 
longer quite so relevant because almost all of the meth coming into the 
United States is coming out of Mexico.
  This legislation does something that is really critical. It seeks to 
cripple the super lab meth production by tracking large international 
shipments of pseudoephedrine. As I mentioned earlier you have to have 
pseudoephedrine to make methamphetamine.
  It requires the five largest exporting countries of pseudoephedrine 
and the five largest importing countries of pseudoephedrine to report 
and track shipments of pseudoephedrine and report to the United States. 
Failure to comply would lead to a reduction in U.S. foreign aid to that 
country by as much as 50 percent.
  We think this is the best regulation we have been able to come up 
with yet to track the international sale of pseudoephedrine and 
superlab production.
  Additional provisions toughen penalties against meth producers and 
traffickers, improves and authorizes new funding for the drug courts 
program, provides help to States to protect drug-endangered children.
  In Nebraska in 2005, nearly 6,000 children were living in foster care 
situations. This is a State with only 1.7 million people. An estimated 
50 percent of foster care children in Nebraska, roughly 3,000, are in 
the foster care system because their parents are meth users or abusers.
  An Arkansas study indicates that the average meth addict costs the 
State and local agencies $47,500 per year because of crimes, child and 
spouse abuse, incarcerations, et cetera.
  One recent study indicated that a prenatal child exposed to meth can 
cost as much as $250,000 in health care just for the first year alone 
and can cost up to $1.7 million to get that child to age 18.
  It is a hugely important problem and very stressful. I believe this 
legislation is a critical first step to ridding our communities of this 
plague, and I urge support of the conference agreement.
  I would like to just show one last picture. This is a young woman who 
was photographed each year from 1979 until her death in January of 
1989, and as you see these pictures, you see her steady deterioration 
and what looks like an aging process of maybe 50 years in a period of 
10 years, and it culminated in her death. This is something we have to 
get rid of.

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