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The real cost of methamphetamine to society must first be looked at in the broader cost of the real cost of the "war on drugs."  In the enforcement section, we have an actual "drug war" running clock, which shows you exactly what the "war on drugs" is costing U.S. taxpayers on a minute by minute basis.

But let's get personal about it.  We looked at the breakdown of Grand Jury Indictments for one day in McLennan County, Waco, Texas.  The source for this data was the Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 Waco Tribune-Herald.  And we separated the indictments that directly mentioned offenses involved drugs or alcohol.  And then we made a pie-chart.  And here's what it looks like:

What that chart tells you is that of 72 indictments handed down that day, 47 were for things like possession of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and drunk driving.  The other 25 were for everything from assaulting a police officer, to fraud, to multiple counts of sexual abuse of a child.  And there's no doubt that if you got right down to it, a lot of those involve drugs or alcohol too.

But the point is, since this chart is pretty typical for most courts, we'd like to give you some things to think about:

• Do you think if we started addressing the substance abuse issue properly, we might save trillions of dollars in court costs, costs of incarceration, plus hundreds of other costs associated with these offenses?

• Do you think the number of lawyers required in North America might actually go down?

• Do you think the number of police officers that we'd need would go down?

• Do you think that if law enforcement wasn't burdened with all these drug cases, they might be able to better focus on all other crimes, like murder, assault, theft, rape and protecting children from abuse?

• Do you think that the size of the prison system administration might go down, instead of going up each year?

• Do you think that if we could could do this, we could actually put the theory of community policing in practice?

We're not going to tell you what to think, because the answers are obvious.  The way we're currently battling substance abuse isn't working.  Plain and simple - it just isn't working, and it hasn't worked since we began over 35 years ago fighting it this way.

"Cost" Versus "Price"

Handling methamphetamine properly is going to take continued awareness and education at the community level, as well as increased funding and budget allocation at nearly ever other level.  And all it takes is one questionable, dubious, or self-serving "study" or "survey" showing a decline in meth use for funding and budget allocation to dry up.  And that's because people are prone to look at price, instead of looking at the distinction between "price versus cost."  Consider:

Both of the devices above will cut your lawn, and the price of one is way less than the price of the other.  But which one "costs" more to cut your lawn with?  Obviously, if you place any value whatsoever on your time and sanity, the scissors are actually more expensive.  "Price" is what you pay once.  "Cost" is what you pay on an ongoing basis forever.

So the price of developing a viable and coordinated strategy for methamphetamine that includes ongoing funds for awareness, education, research, treatment, drug courts and so on, will be significantly more than the price doing it wrong, or doing nothing at all.  But what of the cost of doing it wrong, or doing nothing?  That's where the real money drain happens, and if we allow it to, it will, and will negatively impact your community no matter where you live in North America or the world.

Are we exaggerating?  Then calculate the "cost" of just some of the obvious and in most cases, documented outcomes when the meth issue is not addressed properly.  Add these costs:

• Cost associated with escalating crime rates in areas such as such as auto theft, burglary, robbery, and the meth addict's favorite crime - "identity theft" which by coincidence, is one of the fastest growing and most financially damaging crimes in North America.

• Cost associated with increased demand for social services (child abuse, domestic violence, foster care.)

• Cost associated with increased need for drug treatment, as well as psychiatric and psychological counseling.

• Cost associated with increased need for medical treatment including burn units having to expand their services, treating children and adults with toxic poisoning etc.

• Cost associated with loss of productivity in the workplace including cases of people working under the influence, people terminated due to poor work habits, theft and embezzlement.

• Cost associated with increased accidents in the workplace due to workers working under the influence.

• Cost associated with meth lab cleanup, disposal of hazardous materials and expansion of HazMat (Hazardous Material) teams.

• Cost associated with increased litigation regarding latent meth contamination.

• Cost associated with increased insurance claims.

• Cost associated with the arrest, detention, trial and ultimate incarceration of offenders.  (That's a biggy!)

• Cost associated with domestic and international enforcement and interdiction.

We could go on, but no matter how big your region or jurisdiction is, the "cost" of addressing the meth issue in a half-baked way is enormous compare to the "price" of doing it right.  Take any item from the preceding list and just calculate the costs for that item alone, and you'll be talking hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars down the drain that could have easily been directed somewhere productive.

Like we said at the outset, properly addressing the meth issue is going to take some bold, innovative thinking, and part of that innovative thinking is realizing that the "cost" of doing nothing or just applying "cosmetic" solutions is enormously more expensive than the "price" you pay for using the proper solution.  At least, that's the way we see it.

We'd like to invite anyone who is involved in the meth issue to review the section on "The International Collaboration On Methamphetamine."    We believe this unprecedented new resource is going to become one of the most powerful tools ever developed for the meth problem, or for that matter, any other drug issue.

We hope you've found our examination of methamphetamine helpful, and we would welcome your feedback.

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