PORTLAND – U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Monday that “the scourge of methamphetamine” has spread across the nation, but law enforcement is making progress in battling the drug.

“In terms of damage to children and to our society, meth is now the most dangerous drug in America, having surpassed marijuana,” Gonzales told the summer conference of the National District Attorneys Association.

The attorney general and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who welcomed the prosecutors, each made a pitch for retaining provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year. Some elements of the anti-terrorism act, such as those allowing expanded surveillance of terrorist suspects and permitting secret proceedings in immigration cases, have drawn the ire of civil liberties advocates.

Gonzales expressed optimism that Congress would ensure that “law enforcement officials have the tools they need to protect our country – tools that are consistent with our values and are consistent with the rights provided for under the Constitution.”

Collins, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, told prosecutors that the proposed revisions to the way Homeland Security funds are allocated would help law enforcement officials and prosecutors fight terrorism while allowing them to focus on local criminal activity.

“We simply cannot permit the war on terror to give license to criminal activity,” she said. “We’ve come a long way since 9-11. Thanks to determined prosecutors, those supporting terror are increasingly being called into account.”

Gonzales, who is considered to be a possible nominee for the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court because of the impending retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, did not mention the high court in his brief remarks.

He and Collins left through a service corridor after posing for a few photos with prosecutors without taking questions from the floor or the media.

A decade ago, Gonzales said, meth was a deadly drug that plagued the Western states, but it since has spread across the entire country. Initially associated with blue-collar users in rural areas, meth has invaded the big cities, and its abusers include members of all racial and economic groups, he said.

Recent national figures indicated that 600,000 Americans used meth within a 30-day period, he said, and a survey of the nation’s counties found that 58 percent of them ranked meth as the No. 1 drug problem, three times that of cocaine.

Methamphetamine has not yet made major inroads in Maine, Evert Fowle, district attorney for Somerset and Cumberland counties and president of the Maine Prosecutors Association, said after Gonzales’ speech. Oxycodone, cocaine and heroin are the illegal drugs most common in Maine, he said.

Although the state’s numbers are small, they are increasing rapidly. Admissions to treatment programs where methamphetamine was the primary drug used grew from 19 in 2002 to 39 in 2004, according to the Office of Substance Abuse.

In his remarks Monday, Gonzales focused on the devastating impact on children, detailing stories of toddlers growing up in households that were home to toxic meth labs or in an atmosphere of neglect by parents strung out on meth.

“It crushes the dreams and potential of thousands of children who grow up around the dangerous drug,” he said.

For law enforcement, meth poses a problem that demands unconventional and innovative solutions, Gonzales said.

He said meth lab seizures have dropped dramatically in states such as Oklahoma, Oregon and Arkansas after they moved to restrict consumer access to cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient used in manufacturing the drug.

“These results are dramatic and they’re real,” he said. “They show progress is possible.”

The Maine Legislature has taken some of the steps outlined by the attorney general, such as limiting the number of packages of pseudoephedrine that can be purchased by an individual and putting cold medicine containing the drug under direct control of a pharmacist.

Beginning Nov. 1, consumers will have to ask a pharmacist or pharmacy technician for the products but will not need a prescription.

On the international level, Gonzales said the federal government is working with China to curb its sales of that ingredient to “super labs” in Mexico that, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, supply 65 percent of the meth in the U.S. market.

“We know it works domestically; we know it works internationally,” he said.

The attorney general also emphasized the importance of education and prevention, saying community leaders, schools and parents need to become involved. He cited efforts to encourage neighbors to report suspected drug activity in a confidential manner and to enlist child protective services to help children of families caught up in meth addiction.

Nearly 300 prosecutors from around the country are attending the three-day meeting in Portland. The group last met in Maine in 1989.

Topics on the agenda include prosecuting high-profile cases. One panel will feature journalists from CNN’s Court TV channel and ABC TV’s “Primetime Live” and prosecutors who have been involved in cases that garnered a great deal of media attention.

James Brazelton, the district attorney for Stanislaus County, Calif., will be a panelist. He led the team that successfully prosecuted Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife, Laci Peterson, and unborn son, Connor.