METH COMMITTEE REACHING OUT TO SCHOOLS

FAYETTEVILLE -- The Meth Awareness Committee plans to meet with
Northwest Arkansas school officials to discuss how to educate young
people on the dangers of methamphetamine use before they become a
drug statistic.

The committee members will meet with school counselors and drug-free
coordinators of the 16 school districts in the Northwest Arkansas
Education Service Cooperative on April 11. The districts are in
Benton, Washington and Madison counties.

Fayetteville Sgt. Doug Pope, a member of the committee, said an
awareness presentation about methamphetamine will be given by police
and Charla Jamerson of Jamerson Forensic Nursing & Investigative
Services, will talk about medical effects of using methamphetamine
and how it can affect children being in home where the drug is used
or manufactured.

Pope said it was important to meet with the school officials to see
what they need from the committee in the way of providing educational
and preventive information.

The committee also discussed logo ideas and a Web site for the group.
A logo of "Project Right Choice" was mentioned as a possibility but
nothing was finalized.

The group is also in the process of creating a Web site. Members
discussed a way to list addresses of houses or apartments that had
been involved in meth activity.

Pope said residents are becoming more interested in checking out
property to see if methamphetamine had been cooked in a house before
buying it. There is always an issue of cleanup and whether the house
has been exposed to drug chemicals.

Judy Cohea, a committee member, asked each member to come up with a
list of "Frequently Asked Questions" about meth and drug use for the
site. She thought it would be helpful to get ideas from different
points of views.

The Web site will include links to treatment centers, labs seized and
drug activity, economic impact of drugs, cost of cleanup, a hotline
number to report drug activity and the list of Frequently Asked Questions.

Larry Goodall, a committee member, said the group needs to decide
where they want to put the Web site -- who will host it. Members
suggested talking with city and county officials about hosting it or,
possibly, a company such as Cox Communications.

The committee is composed of 12 school, law enforcement, health and
community officials from Washington and Madison counties. It was set
up in 2005 to develop strategies for anti-methamphetamine campaigns.
The committee is funded by a federal grant.