| 12/6/2005 3:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Drug policy agencies cook up campaign to ‘End Meth’
Sara Denhart
Courier Staff Writer
Ask Todd how his life was when he was using, dealing and manufacturing methamphetamines, and he will likely get choked up recalling his first year off the highly addictive drug.
After Todd graduated from high school, he had college athletic scholarship opportunities but decided not to go to college and work instead. At 19, he began smoking marijuana and became an alcoholic. Two years later, he discovered methamphetamines because he felt cocaine did not provide a high that was long enough for his tastes. Soon, he was not only using meth, but he was also manufacturing and dealing.
When he was on meth, he felt like he was God and he was invincible. However, it was not until he was arrested for trafficking last year that he truly felt closer to God.
“It was a blessing,” Todd said about being arrested. “It was God working in my life.”
Todd, whose last name was not disclosed, is a resident at The Healing Place in Louisville, one of the largest addiction recovery centers in Kentucky. It serves homeless and addicted men and women and their families by providing addiction programs, meals and shelter.
It was at The Healing Place where Todd really figured out how much better his life could be if he stopped using methamphetamines.
“I found Him,” Todd said. “Without that, I have nothing.”
Todd’s story is becoming increasingly uncommon across America as methamphetamine use has become more popular in the last few years and has become a larger problem in Kentucky.
Methamphetamines are no stranger to Carrollton as the police department had its first discovery and arrests from a meth lab on Sixth Street in October. The lab, located at 601 Sixth St., was discovered by local authorities after receiving a telephone tip. The apartment housed Heet antifreeze, pseudoephedrine, iodine crystals, red phosphorous, coffee filters and a hot plate among other items used in producing methamphetamines.
“I’m sure we have more labs than what we discovered,” Carrollton chief of police Michael Willhoite said.
With meth use in Kentucky becoming more prominent, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America chose Louisville as one of the 23 cities across the nation to launch a methamphetamine communications campaign.
The campaign plans to launch commercials, public service announcements and information on television, radio, print media and online, targeting the community, young adults and parents of teen-agers, said Mike Townsend, executive vice president and director of the Methamphetamine Demand Reduction Program.
“Meth is so powerfully addictive,” Townsend said. “We need to foster a social intolerance.”
In the initial public service announcements shown at a press conference in Louisville on Monday, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America features more than its first campaign in 1987 of an egg frying on a pan, resembling what one’s brain looks like when using drugs. The “End Meth” announcements show the dangers to non-users, the neighbors and the families of meth users.
In one of the television announcements, a small child named Jamie lives in an apartment above a clandestine meth lab. She has no idea what toxic gases and fumes lie below her, but she breathes them in playing with her toys. Another announcement shows a man being examined by a nurse. The patient is wheezing and coughing and a voice-over tells the audience that the patient did not know he’s been inhaling crystal meth because the house he moved into was once a lab that is still toxic.
In the end, each announcement asks the same underlying question, “Who has the drug problem now?”
The drug agencies hope the new campaign will help people learn about the dangers of methamphetamines and teach people how to educate others. The commercials have been given to the various media networks and should be more prominent to Kentuckians by the beginning of January, Townsend said. He said the campaign is based on research and should increase awareness to the target audience.
“It affects everybody,” Townsend said. “Law enforcement can’t do it alone.”
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Meth resources on the Web:
http://www.methresources.gov
http://www.justthinktwice.com
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/press05/meth%5Ffactsheet2.html
http://www.dea.gov/concern/amphetamines.html
http://www.nationaldec.org
http://www.naco.org
http://www.kci.org
Meth: How to visually spot
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