SALT LAKE CITY TOUTS ANTI-METH EFFORTS

Confronted by a methamphetamine epidemic, Salt Lake City in 1998 began a
program that coordinated the efforts of law enforcement officials, child
protection specialists and health care workers.

The COPS Methamphetamine Initiative led to a decline in the number of meth
labs seized in the Salt Lake area and greater awareness of the problem
throughout Utah, said Marjean Searcy, the initiative's project coordinator.
She addressed the Wyoming State-Wide Methamphetamine Awareness Conference
in Casper on Friday.

What worked in Salt Lake City may not work everywhere, Searcy said, because
every community plagued by meth is different. But she and Marilyn Johnson,
a nurse who mentors Utah's Drug Endangered Children program, said it is
important for communities to coordinate resources when fighting meth.

Before Salt Lake City began coordinating its agencies to fight meth, for
example, child protection workers and law enforcement officials hampered
each other's efforts, Searcy said.

Parents would be arrested by law enforcement for producing meth, while at
the same time child protection workers would be attempting to get the drug
makers' children back in their homes, Searcy said.

Such problems have now been alleviated, thanks to the coordinated efforts
of the COPS -- or Community Oriented Policing Services -- Methamphetamine
Initiative, she added.

The increased focus on the problems meth has created in Salt Lake City has
also led to a decline in the number of meth labs seized in the area since
2000, Searcy said. But it has not seemed to lead to a decline in the
estimated number of users in the Salt Lake metro area, as the drug is now
being imported from locales such as Mexico, she added.

The safety of children in meth-addled homes has been a large component of
Salt Lake's program, Johnson said.

One way in which Utah has protected its children from meth is by making it
a felony to endanger a child by exposing him or her to meth production and
use, Johnson said.

Progress has also been made by testing the hair of children believed to be
exposed to meth, she added.

The initiative has also led to better monitoring of children's health
records. Child protection workers can now spot young people who show signs
of being in a family where meth is a problem when they see doctors, Johnson
said.

Despite these efforts, Johnson is not sure whether there are fewer Utah
young people exposed to meth today than there were in 1998 or 2000, she
said after her presentation.

There are "many children out there that we are not seeing," she said.