I urge you to oppose HR 3889, the Methamphetamine Epidemic Elimination Act,
which would remove judicial discretion by imposing mandatory five-year,
ten-year, and life sentences for trafficking and even for mere possession of
methamphetamine.  As Representative Bobby Scott pointed out during hearings on
this bill, draconian minimum sentences for crack cocaine haven't reduced the use
of crack, and nothing suggests that the outcome of harsher mandatory sentencing
would be any different in the case of methamphetamine.  Furthermore, the
putative `epidemic' of methamphetamine is more hype than reality - the two
national drug use surveys available that address this topic, the National Survey
on Drug Use and Health and the Drug Abuse Warning Network - do not show any
rapid rise in meth use in recent years.  Drugs of abuse should be treated as the
public health problem that they are, rather than as an occasion for vengeful and
punitive sentencing.