Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n031.a08.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n133.a09.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a01.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a02.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a03.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n023.a01.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a02.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a01.html ,
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a03.html

SMALL STEPS COULD BEGIN SLOWING METH DESTRUCTION

Within the span of only one decade, Washington state has incubated a
dangerously potent methamphetamine industry whose product is both
home-brewed and imported from Mexico and California.

For the families and communities destroyed by meth, and the front-line
professionals feverishly striving to curb its impact, the effects have
been overwhelming:

- - Treatment admissions for adults citing meth as their primary drug
increased 850 percent from 1992 to the first half of 1998.

- - Referrals for treatment from Child Protective Services because of
meth use by parents more than doubled from 1995-96 to 1998-99.

- - The discovery of meth labs has become common. At the beginning of
the last decade King County reported six labs to the state; by the end
of October, 78 labs had been detected in 1999. Regrettably, the drug's
greedy grasp on several parts of the state, most notably southwest
Washington and rural areas, has evoked no comprehensive counter-attack
by elected officials in Olympia.

And while a 60-day legislative session is an unlikely forum to devise
such a strategy, four discrete actions should be taken now to help
blunt meth's impact before it makes any more inroads.

Moneywise, two of the corrective measures are small potatoes in a $20
billion general fund budget.

First is the Department of Ecology's request for $750,000. By law the
agency must dispose of the toxic remains of meth labs, which have
escalated from fewer than 45 a year in the early '90s to almost 800
last year. The well-justified appropriation would allow DOE to add
four workers and buy four trucks.

The other financial matter is $2 million to provide treatment services
in drug courts in four counties (including King and Pierce).
Unfortunately, it is left over from last session. The courts target
non-violent offenders who do not make or distribute drugs, and return
to taxpayers $2.45 in reduced recidivism for every dollar spent.

Not a dime is needed for the last two pieces of business. Companion
bills in the House and Senate would make it Class C felonies to steal
anhydrous ammonia and to possess it with the intent to manufacture
meth; further, it would be illegal to possess anhydrous ammonia in a
container for which it's not designed.

The ammonia is being pilfered from farmers because, besides being an
inexpensive fertilizer, it's a staple of today's most popular meth
recipe. The legislation also would sensibly shift the liability for
any harm from the retailers and farmers to the people responsible --
the thieves.

Finally, to drive home to adults the multiple dangers of cooking meth
in the presence of children, prosecutors have proposed legislation to
create two new crimes: exposing a child to meth manufacture in the
first degree (51 to 68 months for a first-time offender) and second
degree (21 to 27 months on the first offense).

Currently police find children or the evidence of children in at least
a third of the labs they uncover.

As one assistant Thurston County prosecutor rightly observed in
testifying for the bill last week, "If a child is in a meth lab, that
should be it. Period. End of story."