Pubdate: Tue, 20 Sep 2005
Source: East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Section: East Valley Voice
Contact:  http://www.eastvalleytribune.com
Forum: 
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/forum/
Address: P.O. Box 1547, Mesa, Az 8521
Fax: (480)898-6362
Copyright: 2005 East Valley Tribune.
Author: Don Stapley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH AND MENTAL ILLNESS

The methamphetamine epidemic began in the West and is moving east, with 
devastating effect.

The drug is now affecting urban, rural and suburban communities nationwide.

For county governments across America, meth abuse causes legal, medical, 
environmental and social problems.

County governments and their citizens must pay for investigating and 
closing meth labs (which are hazardous waste sites), making arrests, 
incarcerating and trying lawbreakers, and providing treatment for addiction 
as well as other serious medical consequences.

Meth's Effects Profound

There are also many social effects that must be dealt with.

In an alarming number of meth arrests there are children in the home, who 
often suffer from neglect and abuse.

Highly flammable and explosive compounds make the labs a danger to the 
community, and for every pound of meth produced five to seven pounds of 
toxic waste remain, which is often released into the environment through 
drains or surface water run-off.

Nowhere in Maricopa County has the meth epidemic's impact been felt more 
severely than in our jails.

There are over 9,200 inmates in our jail system and the population 
continues to accelerate. While our Commission of Justice System 
Intervention for the Seriously Mentally Ill has been working to divert the 
mentally ill out of our jails, we have discovered there is a connection 
between the meth epidemic and mental illness.

Here are a few facts:   95 percent of our inmate population is in jail 
directly or indirectly as a result of drug or alcohol use.

About 25 percent receive psychotropic drugs prescribed by our correctional 
health doctors to treat the symptoms of mental illness. Cost to the tax 
payers last year was over $5 million.

Methamphetamine poses much different physical, emotional and mental effects 
on its users than cocaine, heroin, marijuana and most illegal drugs. While 
coming down from the "high" created by the use of meth is easier in many 
ways than from these other addictive drugs, meth drains its users to the 
point of total physical and emotional collapse. It creates severe 
depression and paranoia and very often near-permanent mental illness, which 
then must be treated with anti-depressants and behavioral therapies in 
order to restore the balance of healthy cognitive skills required to 
function in society.

Sound The Alarm

We now realize our growing jail population may indeed be a result of the 
explosion of meth amphetamine use. With tax monies, we are funding the 
prescribed drugs and counseling to treat meth-addicted inmates who must 
deal with the consequent symptoms of mental illness.

We continue to seek better programs and solutions to these difficult 
problems. We need to sound the alarm to our youth and to every potential 
meth user in our community. 
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman