CLINIC IS PREVENTION

I have an ideal location for the methadone clinic proposed for the Salmon
Creek area. Why not put it in that run-down trailer park on Highway 99?
Seriously, though, it's time we admitted that Clark County has a much more
dangerous problem than ex-heroin addicts who are trying to sober up. It's
called methamphetamine.

I'm a public health nurse who lives in the Salmon Creek area, and I wonder
if the worried neighbors who object to the clinic ever bothered to visit
some of the neighborhoods between Highway 99 and Interstate 5? I can think
of one particular street in the area that's been referred to as "Meth
Alley." The ex-heroin addicts I've met are only harmful to themselves, but
the methamphetamine addicts are paranoid and dangerous to everyone. I
suspect that there are children currently attending Sarah J. Anderson,
Sacajawea and Salmon Creek elementary schools who cope with a parent's
methamphetamine addiction problems on a daily basis.

Let ex-heroin addicts get their methadone in a safe place. Concentrate our
energies and outrage on the methamphetamine scourge instead. It's
everywhere in Clark County, folks.

Rosie Brinsek

Vancouver