Meth Initiative Rallies Community

Itasca County Sheriff Pat Medure, 1996 BCLP alum, realized just how big the numbers were about five years ago.

At that time, in this rural northern Minnesota county of about 40,000, approximately 95 percent of those arrested and/or booked into the local jail each year had methamphetamine in their possession or in their system. Itasca County, like other rural counties, was in the midst of a national meth epidemic. “It wasn’t just an Itasca County problem, it was a state and national problem,” said the sheriff.

Statistics from the Minnesota Student Survey in 2004 indicated that use of meth was not just limited to hard-core drug users. Then, nearly 5 percent of high school seniors reported having tried the drug in the previous year. In 2003, the state saw its highest incidence, 500, of meth lab and other related meth reports, according to the Minnesota Department of Health.

While not just a local problem, the issue was a pressing safety and security issue at home. The problem was big enough that the sheriff and his department joined forces with other community leaders to understand and tackle the problem. While leaders were framing the issue, they discovered that one of the biggest obstacles to community action was quite simply a lack of knowledge.

Citizens who wanted to take action didn’t know how ­ they didn’t know what meth looked like, what kinds of behaviors those on the drug exhibited, how highly addictive it was or even how widespread and mainstream its use had become.

The Sheriff’s Department, with the help of the County Attorney’s Office, local school officials, the United Way and local Chamber of Commerce, decided the best course of action was to take community drug education to a new level.

That education included dozens of community, school and small group presentations, which focused on the notion that drug use was a community problem with costs to all community members. Those costs were coming in the form of incarceration, court and rehabilitation costs to taxpayers. A single day of local jail time costs $61 per inmate, per day. There also were the intangible costs of lost community potential when young residents became hooked.

Through grants, the local leaders also brought in David Parnell, a recovering meth addict turned public speaker, to talk to kids in local schools. “The educational piece had a big impact on the community. If people know what to look for, they know what they’re seeing,” said Pat.

The presentations gathered large crowds, thanks in part to help from local media.  And, once the message was delivered to local residents, the community response was overwhelming.

We had a groundswell of response from community groups,” said Itasca County Attorney Jack Muhar, a 1996 BCLP alum. “The public was very concerned about the meth problem and how it affected the community and their kids.”

Some community volunteers banded together to form a meth hotline through the local First Call for Help, a beginning step for those who needed help with an addiction problem.

Although it is difficult to gauge the impact of Itasca’s meth initiative, the numbers today are far more positive than five years ago. Itasca County has reduced the number of those arrested or booked with meth in their systems by about half, according to the sheriff. Community education, combined with collective action in the Minnesota Legislature in 2005, which restricted access to pseudoephedrine (a main ingredient used in the manufacturing of meth) also netted positive results in meth manufacturing.
Itasca County hasn’t had a meth lab bust in the last three years. By the end of 2005, the county had 21 meth lab busts to date.

A New Way to Deal with Addiction:

Another positive outgrowth of the local meth initiative has been the local implementation of alternative drug court, or Wellness Court, to deal with offenders with an addiction problem, said the sheriff. This alternative system unites the judiciary and criminal justice system with substance abuse treatment providers and offenders who meet Wellness Court criteria for participation.

Wellness Court (often called Drug Court) emphasizes the direct correlation between substance abuse and crime and provides intensive phased treatment through a team of law enforcement/court officials and counselors. Community costs are shed with this alternative system.  According to information from Minnesota Drug Courts, drug court participants spend an average of 24 fewer days in jail or 102 fewer days in prison over a three-year period. More than twice as many drug court graduates spend no time in jail over a three-year period than those who did not participate in such a program.

“The ripple effect of the meth initiative and Wellness Court is that as a county we have reduced crime and improved health for those who might have become users,” said the county attorney. “”Not every person stopped using drugs because of the public education, but we did get some people through that most difficult period when they are most likely to use.”

The sheriff plans to use the collaborative model created by the meth initiative to tackle another emerging community safety and security problem ­ prescription drug abuse.