After Harder’s Push, White House Releases New Plan to Fight Methamphetamine

WASHINGTON – After Representative Josh Harder’s February request, this weekend the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) released a new plan to combat methamphetamine nationwide. As methamphetamine trafficking and overdoses are on the rise, the plan lays out a strategy to reduce methamphetamine supply, trafficking, use, and overdoses.

Over the last three years, Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area enforcement initiatives have seized increasing amounts of methamphetamine in all forms—from 1,182 kilograms in 2018 to 2,061 kilograms in 2020.

“Keeping our community safe starts with ending the scourge of drug trafficking in the Valley and the violence that comes along with it,” said Rep. Harder. “Three months ago I wrote to the White House demanding they put a plan together to fight meth trafficking, and I’m glad to hear they followed through on my request. Now, let’s put this plan into action and get this poison out of our community.”

Specifically, the action plan takes a public health and safety approach that emphasizes:

Treatment services: The plan emphasizes the need to remove barriers to treatment for methamphetamine use disorder in a variety of outpatient, specialty treatment, and incarcerated settings, including expanded capacity building on the use contingency management which has shown great promise in methamphetamine treatment.

Harm reduction services: Methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths often include other illicit drugs such as fentanyl. The plan calls for the expansion of evidence-based harm reduction services, including fentanyl test strips, syringe services programs, and naloxone—to save lives and create new pathways to treatment.

Prevention in schools across the country: The plan calls for expansion of evidence-based primary prevention programs in schools within counties, including among Tribal Nations and Tribal officials, with high rates of persistent poverty, low education, low employment, and high meth use.

Training and Education: The plan calls for updated, comprehensive trainings for law enforcement and bystanders to identify and assist persons experiencing symptoms of acute meth intoxication, and for health care providers to help with the response to meth-associated cardiac events.

Domestic law enforcement coordination: The plan emphasizes the need to work with established law enforcement task forces nationwide to increase focus on methamphetamine trafficking, and to establish additional task forces as deemed necessary.

Federal oversight of pill press equipment: The plan emphasizes increased federal oversight of pill and tablet pressing equipment, including their importation, sales, and illicit use to address the increased trafficking of pills that resemble legitimate pharmaceuticals.

International partnerships to disrupt trafficking: The plan calls for the expansion of global partnerships, including with Mexico, China, and India, in order to reduce the supply of methamphetamine trafficked across the U.S.-Mexico border, and encourage global action on the precursor chemicals used to produce methamphetamine.

International capacity building for law enforcement agencies: The plan calls for the expansion of training for domestic and international law enforcement agencies involved in disruption of methamphetamine distribution.

Read the full plan HERE.

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