A state task force has recommended an expansive three-prong enforcement, treatment and prevention approach to address Arizona’s methamphetamine crisis, which Gov. Janet Napolitano called the state’s “No. 1 drug problem.”
“Marijuana is out there, we’ve got it. Coke (cocaine) is out there; it’s bad. Prescription drug abuse — bad. All these things are bad,” the governor said. “But you can add them all together and they probably wouldn’t equal the social damage that is being caused in Arizona by methamphetamines.”
The program unveiled May 7 is a multi-disciplinary approach aimed at involving local, state and federal resources all across the state, Napolitano said.
“Whatever we need to do has to be full spectrum,” said Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall, who headed the task force that first met in August. “It has to be involving not just public safety but adequate prevention and treatment as well.”
The intent, according to the Arizona Methamphetamine Task Force, would be to develop shared intelligence capabilities, identify technology and training programs to increase the ability to inspect and intercept meth shipments along the state’s borders and interstate trafficking routes.
Plan advocates creating Office of Substance Abuse
The action plan lists 10 priority recommendations, including appointing the director of the Governor’s Division for Substance Abuse Policy to coordinate statewide planning — creating the Office of Substance Abuse Policy.
Among the other priorities, it would fund site-based prevention specialists to identify and put into effect age-appropriate training and educational materials that have been proven effective that will meet the needs of children who have been exposed to or are at risk of harm from meth and to reduce their addiction risk.
“It can’t be said enough what a terrible epidemic meth is,” Napolitano said, noting that in only about 15 years it has become pervasive and “from something that is in many respects not only the No. 1 drug problem in Arizona but maybe the No. 1 public health problem.”
Tony Coulson, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s assistant special agent in charge in southern Arizona, said he could not provide statistics on the number of methamphetamine users, those indirectly affected or the costs in dollars.
“There’s more users out there, more people addicted, than we have beds to treat,” Coulson said. “It costs the citizens of Arizona a tremendous amount of money to pay for the meth problem that we have here,” he said.
Napolitano said she created the task force because a lot of people in agencies and organizations in communities statewide are doing different things to try to address the growing meth issue. “But there was no overarching, statewide cohesive vision that had specific, articulable steps that we could take” that would address enforcement, treatment, education and prevention, she said.
She said the goal now is to implement the task force-proposed steps and strategies.
Napolitano said an additional $400,000 will go into the Department of Corrections budget for fiscal 2008 for inmate substance abuse treatment services, and the Division of Substance Abuse Policy in her office is applying for a $7 million grant for enhanced access to recovery, expand treatment services and enhance drug courts across the state.

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