SEQUIM — There’s a drug that works like heroin, can kill like heroin, and is found in a lot of homes on and off the North Olympic Peninsula.
The stuff has made its way into high schools and become a “huge problem,” Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna told the Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club on Friday.
It’s not methamphetamine he’s talking about.
McKenna sought to wake up the Sunrise Rotary to what he called the next big plague: abuse of prescription narcotics.
“They’re everywhere,” he said.
There’s OxyContin, for example — the painkiller that acts like an opiate on the brain — that when ground up and smoked “gives you the full blast” of what’s prescribed as a time-released drug.
Oxy, as McKenna called it, is relatively easy for abusers to get hold of.
“These drugs are coming from us. [Teenagers] are getting them out of Grandma and Grandpa’s medicine cabinet, or Mom and Dad’s.”
McKenna — a Republican who’s seeking a second term, facing Democratic challenger and Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg in the Nov. 4 general election — told the club members that he’s been around the state to 55 high schools.
Students “are getting it, when it comes to meth. They’re scared of it, frankly. They should be,” he said.
“Unfortunately, they’re not afraid of prescription drugs.”
McKenna is organizing a youth conference on prescription-drug abuse Oct. 17 and 18 in Yakima, and wants to see high schoolers from everywhere, including the North Olympic Peninsula.
Help with transportation costs is available, he said.
For information, phone the Attorney General’s Port Angeles office at 360-457-2711.
