WASHINGTON – Methamphetamine use is increasing along the East Coast after years of largely being confined to rural areas west of the Mississippi River, a government report shows.

But officials nationwide are finding fewer meth labs where the highly addictive drug is cooked – a bright spot in the nation’s war against a drug the White House describes as dangerous as cocaine and heroin.

Meth “is as bad, or worse, than most of those drugs for most of those people who have encountered it,” John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday.

The number of workplace employees who tested positive for meth dipped dramatically in several Midwest and western states where the drug so far has provided the largest punch, including Missouri, Iowa and New Mexico.

But it surged along the East Coast, including in Connecticut and Maine, and by a whopping 115 percent increase in the District of Columbia.

The data by New Jersey-based Quest Diagnostics Inc. compared state-by-state drug tests from the first five months of 2006 with the same period last year, the most recent data available. Nationally, positive drug tests decreased by 12 percent between the two years.

The drug test results were included in a White House report titled: “Pushing Back Against Meth,” issued Thursday as part of a government-wide awareness day.

Justice Department officials cite mostly anecdotal evidence showing that meth use and cooking labs are spreading to inner cities. Walters said that’s in part because drug traffickers, largely from Mexico, are now selling meth to cocaine and heroin customers in urban areas. Additionally, many East Coast states do not have state laws that require cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine – the ingredient used to cook meth with other household chemicals – to be placed behind pharmacy counters.

By contrast, some western states where meth has been a long-standing scourge have such laws on the books, making it harder for addicts to buy large amounts of pseudoephedrine. Walters attributed part of the drop in workers testing positive for meth in those states to the laws. Earlier this year, Congress approved a federal law to keep medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters in all states.