Agencies vow cooperation to stem tide of meth abuse
By Cherry Sokoloski
North Forty News
Facts and figures
About 100 movers and shakers from Larimer and Weld counties gathered on
Oct. 16 for an all-day meth summit organized by the Larimer County Commissioners.
The goal: to get a handle on the devastating problem of methamphetamine
use and abuse in northern Colorado.
At the end of the day, agencies pledged to work together to find solutions
and bring some hope to what often seems a hopeless situation.
Commissioner Kathay Rennels said the success of the meth summit will be
determined by outcomes, but she has already received positive feedback
and offers of help. She would like to see more recognition of the problem
and beginning steps toward better intervention and education. Participants
at the summit, she said, became more hopeful as they learned that meth
addicts can recover. Addicts "need to be hopeful, need to know where to
go and need to know someone will reach out and help them," she said.
Summit participants agreed that a task force and strategic plan are needed
as first steps. Randy Ratliff, executive director of the Larimer Center
for Mental Health, said he will ask the Mental Health and Substance Abuse
Partnership, a group of 34 local agencies, if they would be willing to
take on this leadership role.
Besides commissioners from both counties, the summit included other elected
officials, health professionals and representatives of law enforcement,
human services, school systems and youth agencies. All agreed that the
impact of meth use on the community has been huge.
According to Sheriff Jim Alderden, meth use is a major contributor to the
overcrowding of detention facilities. People are arrested not only for
meth use and dealing but for all sorts of crimes committed to support the
habit. So far in 2006, the sheriff's office and drug task force have seized
six meth labs in the county.
Meth's impact on law enforcement spills over to the court system, creating
backlogs of cases. "Meth has fried the criminal justice system," said assistant
district attorney Cliff Riedel. He estimates that 40 to 60 percent of the
district's court cases have a tie-in to meth use.
Angela Mead, deputy division manager for the Larimer County Department
of Human Services, said substance abuse, including abuse of meth, is the
number one contributor to child abuse both locally and nationally. Many
children are removed from their homes because their parents are using meth,
and in the past year the cost of out-of-home care for those children was
nearly $260,000 in Larimer County alone.
Averil Strand of the county health department said at least 10 percent
of women in the department's maternity program admit to using meth.
According to David May, president of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce,
meth use is costing businesses in terms of health care, absenteeism and
lower productivity.
John Horton, from the President's Drug Policy Office in Washington, D.C.,
also spoke at the summit, addressing the supply issue in the battle against
meth. "What we have to do is cut off the ingredients used in meth labs,"
he said. Colorado and Oklahoma have led the way in this effort, he said,
by restricting the purchases of cold medicines containing ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine, ingredients used in meth manufacture.
Nationwide, he said, the administration has seen a 29 percent reduction
in the number of small meth labs in the past two years, based on the number
of seizures by law enforcement. Local authorities confirmed that the number
of seizures in Larimer County has gone down in the last few years.
Small labs, however, account for about 20 percent of the meth used in the
United States. The remainder is produced in Mexico or in "super labs" within
the United States, labs that are often tied to Mexican organized crime.
The administration, Horton said, is making progress in negotiations with
Mexico, and Mexico is gradually reducing its imports of the cold medications
used in meth production.
Deb Hill, a former meth addict who is now a drug and alcohol counselor
at Island Grove Regional Treatment Center, told the group about the devastating
effects of meth in her life, including the threat of losing her children.
She also became unemployable and homeless as a result of her addiction.
Hill urged participants to develop compassion for meth addicts. "We do
recover and become responsible, productive, loving parents and dedicated
workers," she said. "I and thousands of other addicts get up and do what
we're supposed to do, raise our children and celebrate life. It's time
to shift the paradigm from 'stop them' to 'help them.'" Sober for six years,
Hill is now giving back by fostering a child of another meth user.
At the end of the summit, participants suggested several action steps to
take in the war on meth. They included the following ideas.
- Communities can save money long-term by investing in prevention and treatment.
According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, if children
can be kept from smoking cigarettes, using illicit drugs and abusing alcohol
until age 21, they are virtually certain never to engage in those behaviors.
- To make the best use of limited resources, agencies should use prevention
and treatment approaches that are backed up by research. Fear-based messages
do not work.
- Agencies should collaborate on prevention, intervention and treatment
programs.
- Communities need to give more emphasis to mental health programs, since
drug users often have other conditions such as depression or bipolar disorder.
- Society should address root causes of all drug abuse, since meth will
give way to another drug of choice.
- Communities should create a resource center that would serve as a single
point of entry for individuals or families needing help with a drug-abuse
problem.
- They should provide a safe, drug-free place for meth addicts to go after
they are released from jail.
- People need more information about risk factors for drug abuse.
- Agencies should provide meth treatment programs that are 90 to 180 days
in length.
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