As most readers around Portsmouth have heard by now, methamphetamine is quickly becoming the new drug scourge of our country. Methamphetamine is, unfortunately, quite easy to make with common household products and is devastatingly addicting. People who get trapped in its clutches often become desperate and are sometimes driven to crime so that they can secure their next fix. Many face drug charges as a result of their crippling need.

That is a large part of the reason why the government has really made an effort lately to address our growing methamphetamine problem. One facet of that crackdown is to make sure people who make methamphetamine are severely punished. Such severe punishment may be the fate of a Norview man and woman who were recently arrested and charged with manufacturing methamphetamine.

Police were called to a resident in the 1200 block of Strand Street on Monday afternoon by a tipster who reported there were narcotics there. A man and woman were arrested at the residence. The 34-year-old man has been charged with manufacturing methamphetamine and letting a child be in the vicinity of methamphetamine manufacture and the 41-year-old woman was charged with possession to intent to sell or distribute narcotics.

Police said there were three children, ages 12, 10 and 3, in the house at the time police visited.

If this man and woman really were making methamphetamine (and that really is an "if," since we do not yet know for sure) and there were children present, then they both made terrible mistakes. But sometimes, drugs can force people to do things they would never normally do if they were not terribly addicted.

Source: The Virginian Pilot, "Two charged in Norfolk meth investigation," Patrick Wilson, Feb. 8, 2012