The National Methamphetamine
Drug Conference
Opening Remarks
E. Benjamin Nelson
Governor Of Nebraska
Methamphetamine is a deadly threat in the great State of Nebraska. A year ago, a teenager in York, a community of about 8,000 people, collapsed and died at his high school prom from an overdose of methamphetamine. It shook the entire community, and it shook the State of Nebraska. Five years ago, the Nebraska State Patrol seized one-half of a pound of methamphetamine in the entire year, but through mid-May of this year, the State Patrol has already seized 70 pounds of methamphetamine. Our law enforcement officials tell us methamphetamine makes users more violent and is a cause for an increase in certain crimes.
Governor Nelson spoke about the growing methamphetamine threat in Nebraska and the Midwest. |
Methamphetamine is a regional threat as well. The Drug Enforcement Administration seized 303 methamphetamine labs in the Midwest in the last year, compared to just 6 in 1992. The U.S. Attorney in Kansas City predicts the city's enforcement operations will seize up to 500 methamphetamine labs this year in Missouri alone. The number of methamphetamine users seeking treatment at publicly-funded treatment centers is up 300 percent in the last two years.
Despite these facts, portions of our society refuse to acknowledge the serious nature of the problem and its dangerous impact on society. Let me give one example. Many of you are probably familiar with the popular ad campaign sponsored by the California Milk Board which encourages people to drink milk. The campaign slogan "Got milk?" is on t-shirts, billboards, magazines and television. Just a few days ago, a member of my staff saw a twisted version of this slogan on a t-shirt in the window of a record store. The slogan, instead of promoting the benefits of drinking milk, read "Got meth?"
I find nothing humorous about the comparison of the milk slogan to the methamphetamine slogan. In fact, the store selling the shirt is a block away from the main city library, and a block from the Lincoln Children's Museum and a movie theater. This shirt is on sale in our Capital city, a community where the police chief says methamphetamine has become the second most prevalent controlled substance of abuse. In response, we made a t-shirt that we think should be displayed in windows and record stores across the state: "Meth stamped out." That is the message we need to get to our young people, and we enlisted the support of the Nebraska Broadcasters Association to work with us to educate our youth.
Last year, the Nebraska Broadcasters Association produced a series of public service announcements specifically aimed at methamphetamine. The idea for these PSAs grew from a regional methamphetamine conference Senator Kerrey and I hosted last August in Grand Island. At that conference, representatives from eight Midwestern states came together to share our experience, our successes, but also our frustration and growing concern about the methamphetamine threat.
We discovered state borders are boundaries with limited effect to stop illegal drug trafficking. Consequently, we developed a collective strategy to fight methamphetamine abuse. That strategy included efforts to bring more federal funding to the region, and Nebraska is now part of a five-state region designated as a High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). The $8 million in funds received in this region is enabling us to attack the problem in a coordinated way with joint investigations and prosecution and with the sharing of intelligence information among various law enforcement agencies.
The nature of the drug threat makes federal and state support even more crucial. Methamphetamine is hitting our rural areas and smaller communities hard. These areas are ill-equipped to deal with this drug threat; many have not had to deal with drug problems of any consequence before. These are places where people still feel comfortable leaving their homes unlocked and their keys in their cars, but this lifestyle is changing because, in large part, methamphetamine has entered the fabric of that life. We must do everything we can to give local officials the support and assistance they need to fight this battle.
We are working to stay ahead of the methamphetamine problem in Nebraska with several law enforcement task forces. Earlier this year, the Nebraska Crime Commission approved a grant for a special prosecutor in Western and Central Nebraska to help with the problem. In my Safe Streets Act of 1995, penalties increased for those convicted of methamphetamine offenses of 7 ounces or more. We know we need to do more, and we need your ideas to do better.
It is going to take everyone in this room and more to stop this killer. Government officials at every level must find the most cost-effective way to target our drug-fighting dollars for the best results. We need to enlist the support of the law-abiding rural couple to report suspicious activity at a nearby farmstead or that of the teenager who sets a good example by being drug free. We need this kind of commitment and support to be successful.
One life lost to methamphetamine is one too many: That of a 17-year-old high-school student who will never see another prom; the death of a neighbor whose car is stolen by a methamphetamine addict; that of a law enforcement officer whose life is on the line making a methamphetamine arrest or seizing a lab. The more we learn about our enemy, the more committed we must become to be the winners of this war. Your efforts at this conference are vitally important. We are fighting for our children's lives, and we cannot afford to lose. Thank you very much.
