METH'S BLIGHT

Kentucky and Indiana didn't respond quickly enough to what has now
emerged as an epidemic of methamphetamine addiction in many of the
poorest and most isolated rural communities in both states.

Some people refer to meth, or crank, as "the poor man's
cocaine."

It's highly addictive, includes several ingredients that can be
purchased at any drug store, and has been known to cause brain damage
in frequent users.

Playing catch-up in containing the epidemic is not only taxing local police,
prosecutors and jailers but also overwhelming child protective authorities,
who must take custody of meth addicts' children, and rehab centers, which
are badly underfunded and over-subscribed, according to The
Courier-Journal's series "Meth: A Rising Blight," published this week.

The states, however, can and must do much more, said many who were
interviewed.

One state that offers a useful example is Oklahoma, which started to
succeed in fighting the war on meth once it lawmakers adopted
legislation to track and limit over-the-counter drugstore sales of
cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoepherine, a key ingredient
for making meth.

The law requires those purchasing targeted medicines to sign a log and
be limited in how much they're allowed to buy at any one time.

On that score, Indiana is ahead of Kentucky.

Hoosier legislators set up the Indiana Methamphetamine Abuse Task
Force last spring, and that group has recommended legislation that the
General Assembly is expected to consider, starting next month. No such
bills have yet been filed in Kentucky for consideration by the 2005
session of its General Assembly.

Kentucky does spend about $25 million annually to treat addicts, and,
according to a University of Kentucky survey, that effort is paying
off.

Treatment is estimated to have saved about $100 million that otherwise
would have been spent to prosecute and incarcerate those
individuals.

Moreover, 60 percent of addicts in the UK survey who were treated in
publicly funded programs reported staying off illegal drugs.

The good news is that more people are taking the meth crisis
seriously. Indictments of those who make and sell meth in Kentucky are
way up.

The bad news is that neither Kentucky nor Indiana legislators have
plans for generating the money necessary to get the whole job done.

The larger truth here is that we can either pay now or, if this
scourge isn't brought under control, pay even more later.