TITLE 1--SUBCHAPTER S EXPANSION (Senate - July 22, 1999)
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, 3 years ago this week I joined with my distinguished friend and colleague, Senator Hatch, to introduce the `Hatch-Biden Methamphetamine Control Act' to address the growing threat of methamphetamine use in our country before it was too late.

Our failure to foresee and prevent the crack cocaine epidemic is one of the most significant public policy mistakes in recent history. Despite the warning signs of an outbreak, few took action until it was too late. But we did learn an important lesson from that mistake. When we began to see similar warning signs with methamphetamine, we acted swiftly to make sure that history would not repeat itself.

That Act provided crucial tools that we needed to stay ahead of the methamphetamine epidemic and avoid the mistakes made during the early stages of the crack epidemic. We increased penalties for possessing and trafficking in methamphetamine and the precursor chemicals and equipment used to manufacture the drug. We tightened the reporting requirements and restrictions on the legitimate sales of products containing precursor chemicals to prevent their diversion, and imposed even greater requirements on firms that sell those products by mail. We ensured that meth manufacturers who endanger the life of any individual or endanger the environment while making this drug receive enhanced prison sentences. And finally, we created a national working group of law enforcement and public health officials to monitor any growth in the methamphetamine epidemic.

I have no doubt that our 1996 legislation slowed this epidemic significantly. But we are up against a powerful and highly addictive drug. Meth stimulates the central nervous system, making the user feel energetic, clever and powerful. Unlike crack, whose effects sometimes last only a matter of minutes, a meth high lasts for hours.

Last year in my home State of Delaware law enforcement officers busted what was described as `the largest and most sophisticated drug lab in the Northeast,' seizing 50 pounds of meth and meth base. This was only one of the 5,786 reported clandestine laboratory seizures in the United States last year.

We have countless heart wrenching stories of violence and families being tragically ripped apart by methamphetamine use, sadly reminiscent of what we saw with crack cocaine. A recent news story reported that a woman in California has been charged with the murder of her infant son. High on meth, she left him in a sealed car in the summer heat while she and her boyfriend slept in an air-conditioned motel room nearby. The innocent infant died a tragic and senseless death.

Unfortunately, this unspeakable tragedy is not an isolated incident. It is not unusual for a meth user to remain awake for days. And as the high begins to wane, the user is likely to be violent, delusional and paranoid. Not surprisingly, this behavior often leads to crime. In areas like San Diego where the meth epidemic rages, more than 33 percent of people arrested in 1998 tested positive for the drug.

On top of the violence associated with methamphetamine users, there is also the enormous problem of violence among methamphetamine traffickers and the environmental and life-threatening conditions endemic in the clandestine labs where the drug is produced.

But perhaps the most frightening fact of all is that despite all of the evidence that methamphetamine is a horribly destructive substance, the percentage of kids who perceive it as a harmful drug is on the decline.

And that I why I am joining my friend from Utah once again --along with Senators DeWine, Feinstein and Bond--to build on the 1996 methamphetamine legislation and continue to fight this pernicious drug.

Our Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, first and foremost, addresses the growing problem of amphetamines as a meth substitute by making the penalties for manufacturing, importing, exporting or trafficking amphetamine equivalent to those established for methamphetamine in our 1996 law. The two drugs are nearly identical --they differ by only one chemical. Whereas methamphetamine is made with ephedrine, a substance found in some over-the-counter cold remedies, amphetamine is produced with phenylpropanolamine, a chemical found in over-the-counter diet pills. The two drugs are produced in the same dangerous clandestine labs and are often sold interchangeably on the streets; the penalties for dealing in both substances should be the same.