"Meth disproportionately affects smaller cities, towns and rural areas. My plan would help thesecommunities fight back," Grassley said. "Right now, the federal anti-drug resources and focus tendto go to the larger urban areas. That's not fair. There's a serious and very dangerous problem inrural communities and smaller cities, and we need the extra help available to address head-on thegrowing use and production of meth."
This initiative comes in addition to the grassroots coalition effort Grassley started two years ago tobring together members of communities called "Face It Together." The FIT Coalition is a statewideeffort that offers citizens strategies to combat illicit drug use in their own hometowns.
Grassley said he intends to introduce the Rural Methamphetamine Use Response Act of 1999 as earlyas next week. The legislation would:
increase the federal resources dedicated to meth lab clean-up;
create regional meth centers to help smaller communities deal with the explosion in methproduction by providing training and resources for local police and sheriffs and to provideaccess to new drug prevention specialists;
create rapid response teams at the federal level to help local communities fight meth gangs;
increase penalties for trafficking in anhydrous ammonia, make it unlawful to transportanhydrous ammonia across state lines and provide support to research on how to makeanhydrous ammonia useless in meth production;
require the Attorney General to provide Congress with an annual strategy to fightmethamphetamine, including a recommendation on the resources needed to address theproblem in rural America;
require the administration to direct anti-drug resources at rural America; and,
require the National Institute on Drug Abuse to improve reports on meth use, especiallyin rural areas and smaller cities and towns and educate the public about the meth problemchallenging rural America.
Grassley is chairman of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control and a senior memberof the Judiciary Committee.