Where I stand—Mike O’Callaghan: Only for personal use

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 10:05 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

THE FRONT PAGE of the Tuesday's Sun should have given Sen. Mark James an answer to his hesitation about filling loopholes in a state law that allows manufacturing of methamphetamine for personal use.

The Sun headline read: Meth lab explodes; Regency Towers evacuated. The story revealed that "A methamphetamine lab exploded Monday in a condominium of the exclusive Regency Towers, causing a blaze that forced about 80 people from their homes in the middle of the night." The estimated damage was about $250,000.

Time and again homes have been burned and damaged by people cooking the drug. Entire neighborhoods have been threatened by these explosions. Cooking meth is a dangerous undertaking no matter whether it's being prepared for sale or personal use.

James, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he's concerned about closing the loophole. He wants the three-to 15-year prison term only for those who make meth for sale. James says, "I want that to apply to serious traffickers but not for people who really manufacture just for personal use."

Blow up a house, burn some kids alive and terrorize a neighborhood, but that's OK because it was just for one nut's personal use.

Sure, and if you believe that I have some NASDAQ stock for you at only $100 a share.

Better yet, remove the loophole and pass Senate Bill 204.

We are right in the middle of the NCAA basketball tournament, and sports betting is bringing big bucks into Las Vegas. Well, not really big bucks when measured beside the sums bet illegally across the country.

When considering what is illegal I'm willing to bypass the millions of dollars bet in office pools in every city and state. I'm thinking about the sums of more than a billon dollars handled by illegal bookies.

This week, introduced in the U.S. Senate is a bill, promoted by Sen. John McCain, which will outlaw the legal sports betting that takes place only in Nevada. This makes me wonder if members of Congress really know as much about sports betting as they claim. From what one prominent local attorney told me they may even know more about it than I do.

He says that when involved in a trial on the Potomac during the 1980s he and two other Las Vegans spent time in and around the U.S. Senate. Here, let him tell it:

"Two fellow Nevadans complained that they would not be able to get their bets down because they would not be in Las Vegas for the weekend. Our host, an employee of the Senate, volunteered that he could help. They politely declined. He then invited us into his office and pulled a ledger out of his desk drawer. At that point we realized that the bookmaker for the U.S. Senate was also a sergeant of arms.

"Two lessons can be learned from this. Some senators and their staff must agree and believe that such betting is a harmless diversion. More importantly, if the harmless diversion is illegal, then the law enforcement (that is what the sergeant of arms is), will be involved and only the privileged and protected will enjoy it.

"If the senators who want to ban betting are serious about eliminating illegal bookmaking and betting, they would not have far to look. If they are just posturing for their constituents, the voters deserve to know."

Gee whiz, and I thought that members of Congress who bet on sporting events only did it when in Las Vegas where it's legal.

This reminds me of an interview I gave a Washington television station. The reporter kept wanting to discuss legal prostitution in Nevada. After three different attempts I explained where prostitution is legal and illegal in the Silver State. That wasn't satisfactory as he wanted more details, which resulted in me saying that within a one-mile circle of the Capitol there are more hookers than there are licensed prostitutes in Nevada.

Then I added, "and that's not counting those in Congress." End of interview.