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(Page 1 of 2 Of This Section) It's Not All Bad News The methamphetamine situation is not without its successes in both North America and other parts of the world where it has emerged. Never before in history has a single drug caused greater mobilization of education and awareness campaigns on so many levels. From community coalitions, to meth task force awareness and education campaigns, to an abundance of media coverage, there has been no shortage of dedication, effort, and in many cases, measurable results. The restriction of precursor chemicals at the retail level, and restriction of other meth-making ingredients at the wholesale level did have an impact, although it was short-lived. At the risk of repetition, because it was a "supply-side" strategy, it only lasts as long as it takes the would-be suppliers to re-organize, and as we've seen, it never takes long. But iIf you know even the slightest thing about addiction and substance abuse, the one thing you know for sure is that until you address the demand for drugs, you will never make a lasting dent in the problem. Addicts will always find a way to get what they need, and enterprising dealers will always find a way to fill that need. When a drug dealer (large of small) is busted in North America, it's not unusual for another dealer to have taken over that "turf" or territory within a few days, or even sooner. So Methamphetamine Is Not Just A Fad The meth problem is North America (and elsewhere) is certainly not a fad, or transitory problem. On the contrary, as we discussed within the section Meth & The Culture Of Overachievement, it's deeply embedded within society because it fills several needs that are very prevalent in our society. And until those needs are properly met, without the use of a substance like methamphetamine, nothing will change. Yet despite education and awareness campaigns, right now, in some regions of North America, they're perfectly poised to be seduced into a feeling that the methamphetamine problem is either solved, or it's peaked and on its way out. Clearly, their perception is that somehow, all the potential meth addicts were prevented from starting use because they saw enough anti-meth ads. Or that all the existing meth addicts were successfully treated, and that all the dealers were arrested and locked away. In short, the perception is that the problem has either completely evaporated, or is in the process of evaporating from the community landscape. It's almost as if some are under the impression that methamphetamine use is as fleeting in popularity as "Beanie Babies," or a particular dance craze. But it's not a fad, and it's far from it. It's Systemic While meth addiction is a problem, like all addictions, it's the symptom of a deeper, "root" problem within the individual and the manifestation of a systemic problem within society. Remember the "Other Faces Of Meth" that we showed you in the section "Misinformation About Meth.?" We're not looking at a drug that has a "temporary" or passing appeal to people, we're looking at a drug that addresses a very profound need that a lot of people in society feel they have. And until we address those issues, meth use in North America and other parts ofthe world might ebb and flow, but using existing methods, it is not going away, and we know that from our historic failure with cocaine. We've been waging "war" on cocaine for decades. At one time you couldn't pick up a newspaper or turn on a television without hearing about the cocaine "epidemic" sweeping around the world. And we paid attention - for a while. And we assumed that as long as we were "waging war" on cocaine, and were regularly reading stories of people going to prison and jail for it, the problem was solved. But was it? Tons - Not Pounds Today, when you talk about cocaine, you don't talk about pounds, you talk about tons. After over thirty years and tens of billions of dollars spent waging war on cocaine, today in 2007, there's more cocaine available than ever before in history, it's purer, and it costs a fraction of what it did just fifteen years ago. And the same applies to heroin, or a variety of other "enemies" we identified with the traditional "war on drugs" approach. But the truth is, we didn't solve the cocaine or heroin problem in North America, we just got bored reading or hearing about it. And so cocaine, heroin and other drugs that monopolized the headlines only years ago, quietly crept back in on society's landscape, and continued to eat away at it in the form of crime and human misery. Many estimate that 95% of property crimes are directly or indirectly related to drug use. And a huge percentage of crime in general is related to drugs. And clearly, it's not that we haven't spent enough money on the drug "epidemics" of the past, it's that we've spent too much money in the wrong places. We've kept doing the same thing over and over and getting the same dismal results. No Community Fighting Meth Is In A Vacuum And the approach we're taking with methamphetamine is for all intents and purposes, identical to the approach we took with cocaine and heroin. Every community fights the drug as if they live in a vacuum, unaffected by what goes on elsewhere. But today, no community is in a vacuum. And if you've thoroughly read our outline on methamphetamine, you already know that the meth problem is extremely inter-connected and intertwined between communities, Supply roughly equals demand and there's a tidal wave of supply now and much more on the way. If you do nothing else, just ponder this one fact for a moment and think about what it means:
No matter what community you live in within the world, the meth problem in your community is to a large degree, affected by the meth situation elsewhere. Your community might be your prime concern because after all, that's where you live. But you can't simply limit your attention solely on your own community. If you're not aware of what's happening elsewhere and responding proactively in your own community, solving the meth problem locally will be like trying to nail Jello to the wall. It'll keep you feeling busy, but will end in failure and frustration. You can dream up anti-drug messages and public service announcements until you're blue in the face - but until you demand things like better treatment, better access to treatment, better education in prisons and jails, and more attention paid to the underlying causes of addiction, you're ostensibly wasting your time. And it's going to take funding and budget allocation on a variety of levels to address the problem, now and in the future. And the price of doing this right won't be cheap, unless you compare it to the cost of doing it wrong. So on the next and last page of our formal examination of methamphetamine, that's what we're going to explain - the cost of methamphetamine, if we handle it like we historically handled cocaine and other drugs. |
