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Campaign Updates>
Penry Challenges White House over Meth
February 21, 2006
State representative challenges White House over meth
smuggling
By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News
February 21, 2006
From his Grand Junction base, state Rep. Josh Penry has
watched methamphetamine take hold in Colorado.
All over the Western Slope and up and down the Front Range,
meth is ruining lives, Penry and local experts say. And
Colorado's law enforcement efforts haven't seemed to put a
dent in the problem.
That's because 80 percent of Colorado's meth supply now
comes through the porous U.S.-Mexico border, mostly by way
of Interstate 25, Drug Enforcement Administration officials
say.
In Mesa County, the story is more severe, Penry said.
Approximately 90 percent of the meth there now comes from
Mexico, a recent analysis by the Mesa County Meth Task
Force found.
Penry has begun to shout loud in hopes of bringing national
attention to the problem. He started off Monday by calling
on top U.S. officials to shut down the "Mexican meth
superhighway."
This week, the Republican lawmaker plans to introduce a
resolution in the legislature that calls on President Bush
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to work with their
counterparts in the Mexican government to slow the flow of
meth across the southern border.
Penry acknowledged that his resolution was aimed at making
noise. But he said the nation's leaders aren't getting the
message about the meth crisis, which is an epidemic in the
West and is starting to infect the East Coast.
"You have to elevate the issue," he said. "It has to be a
priority at the highest levels of government. These numbers
have been these numbers for several years and I'm not
entirely sure there has been as much attention to them as
there should be."
Penry said he has become more and more alarmed and was
particularly troubled to discover that pseudoephedrine
imports to Mexico have increased steadily in recent years,
from 66 tons in 1999 to 224 tons in 2004.
Pseudoephedrine is the only active ingredient required to
make meth. Estimates show Mexico only needs about 100 tons
of pseudoephedrine for medical uses each year.
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