  Metamaterial is promising for enhancing the capability of plasmonic devices.
We consider a cylindrical waveguide with three-level \Lambda\ atoms embedded in
the dielectric core. By comparing metal cladding vs metamaterial cladding of a
waveguide with \Lambda\ atoms in the core, we show that, for a fixed amount of
slowing of light due to electromagnetically induced transparency, the
metamaterial cladding outperforms in terms of the inherent loss.
