METH EPIDEMIC REQUIRES HOLISTIC ATTACK IN STATE

During a legislative hearing on anti-methamphetamine bills on Tuesday,
Rep. Jack Cairnes, R-Renton, aimed pointed questions at the lieutenant
who directs the Washington State Patrol team investigating meth labs
in 37 of the state's 39 counties.

Why can't the growth in clandestine labs be slowed? Isn't it more
important to put these labs out of business than issue traffic
tickets? When is the state going to put a stop to all this?

Very perceptive questions.

Trouble is, the state is a day late and a dollar short in asking, let
alone addressing, them. (See our special report on the methamphetamine
crisis.)

As evidence that legislative memories can be brief, consider that last
year the patrol asked for 18 new positions so its team could better
respond to the wildly proliferating labs; the Legislature agreed to
six.

Consider, also, that this is a state that has not developed a
comprehensive plan to thwart the easily made, relatively inexpensive
and hugely addictive drug. This is true though meth labs were first
detected in the late '80s and their number doubled from 1998 to 1999

More, this is a state that treats the children found in homes or
vehicles where meth is being cooked almost as much as an afterthought
as do their own parents.

In sum, this is a state that is beset by a public health epidemic but
lacks a holistic approach to treat it.

It being the end of January, no meaningful strategy could possibly be
devised by the end of the two-month legislative session. But this
dearth of time shouldn't absolve the Legislature of responsibility to
do what's needed:

Appoint an interim study committee to solicit testimony from
professionals on the front lines around the state, take advantage of
the research that's already been done by various state agencies and
put together an integrated framework to be debated in the biennial
budget-writing session that starts next January. Some narrowly
targeted bills are in the hopper for discussion this year. (Tomorrow,
we will argue that a handful deserve approval now.)

Alternately, state officials could choose to apply their lobbying
muscle to the Washington State Methamphetamine Initiative. It seeks
$15 million in federal funding for one year of law enforcement and
prosecution, public health and ecology, community education and
prevention, treatment and family services.

The ad hoc coalition that drafted the initiative is stressing that a
successful Washington model could be replicated elsewhere, as the
epidemic is moving from west to east.

Both approaches deserve thoughtful consideration; either would begin
to remedy the reactive mode that Washington has been mired in while
the meth onslaught continues unabated.

Already this year the number of meth labs investigated by the state
patrol has tripled over the same period in 1999. This week the
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University disclosed that meth use among eighth graders in rural areas
was much more extensive than among urban adolescents.

"Bluntly put, meth has come to Main Street, along with other drugs and
with magnum force aimed at our children," said Joseph Califano Jr.,
president of the research group. "It's time for all Americans to
recognize that drugs are not only an urban problem."

To that we add, meth is Olympia's problem.