PORT ANGELES — While methamphetamine use is down on the North Olympic Peninsula and across the state, abuse of narcotic prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and Percocet are taking meth’s place, state Attorney General Rob McKenna said Monday.
Community action teams like those used to curb meth use earlier this decade should be used to fight prescription drug abuse now, McKenna told the Clallam County Community Meth Action Team at the Clallam County Courthouse.
“The community meth action team has proven to be an effective model,” McKenna said.
“I think it’s the model we’re going to need to use when it comes to prescription drug abuse as well.”
Two appearances
McKenna met with local leaders in Port Angeles on Monday, speaking to the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce at noon before addressing the meth team in the afternoon.
“I predict this problem [of prescription drugs] is going to be more difficult even than meth,” McKenna said.
“As difficult, challenging and dangerous as meth is, I’m guessing this is going to be a harder problem for us to really start to make progress on.”
“The good news is we’ve learned a lot from the community-based approach we’ve taken top battling meth, and it’s going to take that same approach with prescription drugs.”
Prescribers, dispensers, social service experts, law enforcement officials and general educators should be brought to the same table to focus on the problem, McKenna said.
“My goal is to raise the profile of prescription drug abuse in Olympia with policy-makers the way I was able to raise the profile of meth with policy-makers in Olympia,” said McKenna, who spearheaded anti-meth legislation in 2006 that passed the state House and Senate unanimously.
Clallam County Commissioner Mike Chapman and Sheriff Bill Benedict, co-conveners of the Clallam County Meth Action Team, introduced McKenna to nine panelists and two dozen audience members during the courthouse session.
Meth labs drop
Benedict said the prevalence of methamphetamine labs, which have an adverse effect on the environment and pose a risk to children, has significantly dropped on the North Olympic Peninsula and elsewhere.
In 2001, the State Patrol documented 1,890 meth labs in Washington, which ranked the state No. 2 in the nation.
McKenna said that number fell to 1,400 in 2004, and 38 in 2008.
No meth labs were found last year in Clallam County, Benedict said.
With less meth is being produced in America, more is being imported from Mexico, McKenna said.
Added together, accidental drug overdoses now kill more people in Washington than car accidents, he said.
In 2007, 610 people died in traffic accidents and 792 died from accidental drug overdoes.
“I’m just astounded by that,” McKenna said.
McKenna outline four key challenges in the battle against prescription drug abuse: they are not illegal, they are extremely powerful, they are extremely addictive and many people don’t understand how powerful they are.
Focus groups have shown that college campuses “are awash with pills,” which are “very easy to get and commonly abused,” McKenna said.
Adding to the danger is the practice of grinding up time-release pills and ingesting them at once.
“You can deliver a blast to your central nervous system much faster,” McKenna said.
Drugstore program
Benedict last month organized a pilot program with Jim’s Pharmacy in Port Angeles and Frick Rexall Drug Store in Sequim to drop off unwanted or unused drugs anonymously and free of charge.
The idea was to keep narcotics off the streets and out of the water supply and ecosystem.
Before the program could get off the ground, the Seattle office of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency stepped in and said the pilot program could not be used for narcotics.
“It shocked me, first of all, because it wasn’t common sense,” Benedict said.
The sheriff pushed the issue and announced on Monday that Sequim City Attorney Craig Ritchie, who had argued on Benedict’s behalf, had been given permission to reinstate the drug take-back program.
Chamber talk
Earlier in the day, McKenna gave an overview of the mortgage crisis to the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce lunch eon at the Port Angeles CrabHouse Restaurant.
Since January 2005, McKenna has co-chaired the National Association of Attorney Generals Financial Practices Committee with Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.
They have investigated Ameriquest, Countrywide and other subprime mortgage lenders.
Banks adopted a model used by subprime lenders, and the Federal Reserve kept lowering interest rates, McKenna said.
He said the market for subprime mortgages grew from $50 billion in the mid-1990s to $500 billion in 2005, and consumer debt rose from $5.9 trillion in 1998 to $13.9 trillion by 2008.
“In the last decade, we have financed our economic prosperity with debt,” McKenna said.
“We learned that our parents and our grandparents were right — that we must save first and invest, not finance our prosperity through borrowing.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com
