Despite good news Monday in the state’s war on methamphetamine, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley says the federal government isn’t doing enough to battle the illegal drug. Grassley says he sent a letter Monday to the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Grassley says he wants the office to “pay more attention to the methamphetamine problem. We’ve seen first-hand in our state how this addictive drug devastates individuals and families. We’ve seen it wreak havoc on the rural landscape.” While new legislation in Iowa is seen as the nation’s toughest on meth, Grassley says the federal government isn’t taking the drug’s threat seriously enough. Grassley says his goal is to get the office focused on meth, “as it should be.” He says meth has been declared the nation’s most dangerous drug by the U.S. Attorney General and that fact needs to be recognized by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Meth lab busts statewide have fallen 75-percent in the past three months, with passage of new restrictions on over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth. While marijuana is a much more popular drug in terms of the number of people who use it, Grassley says “methamphetamine causes much more destruction in a much shorter period of time.”
