| Show M Governor Huntsman's plan for meth in Utah Marissa M. M Groce Senior Editor I I i I Governor Jon Huntsman plan for Utah's ever- ever rising problem has been a long longtime longtime i time coming For about a aI I year now a study has been I carried out concerning the problem Among the individuals involved in the study were law enforcement officials researchers treatment expertise and charitable and religious leaders all governor- governor appointed The br breakdown of Huntsman's plan may seem seema a bit drastic in terms of money A spending plan has been laid out that includes two million dollars for an anan an anti ti ad campaign another two million to expand Utah's drug courts two and a half million dollars for on- on demand addiction treatment for over five hundred women with priority given to those who have children and another six hundred thousand dollars to build an meth anti-meth law enforcement task force Although this is most definitely a high- high priced plan Huntsman maintained in a statement to the Salt Lake Tribune that use is a graphic problem we need needa a graphic solution Sixty percent of all women addicts admitted to clinics for treatment have children After learning of this startling fact Governor Huntsman geared his plan towards focusing on the use of women and aid women with children exceeds alcohol as the leading abusive substance for women Moreover for more than five years has been the number one drug of all leth Continued on page 3 f fr r r 4 r t I I Photo courtesy of Governor I Jon Huntsman Jr plans on spending SI 2 million on defense I and rehabilitation is Utah's most used illegal drug 1 i Guv Guy gets k tough on Meth Continued from page 1 addicts seeking treatment at public clinics Unlike other plans in the past Governor Huntsman's p Ian is on the actual treatment of users in them back to order to get health and hopefully save t their lives In the past most of the proposals for drug use and abuse deal with jailing users making laws tighter and so on However it seems that past efforts have obviously not worked as shown by Huntsman's Huntsman Huntsman's s assertion to the Salt Lake if dont don't know Tribune I were we're in a state of denial and problem but we have a we have to solve it Utah was the In 2004 J third state in the nation in inthe inthe inthe the number of meth users and in 2002 for the first time the number of female meth addicts in treatment outnumbered the number of male addicts In Salt Lake County the average waiting list at a treatment center spans a median of anywhere from four to eight weeks Although the number of meth lab seizures have slowly declined over the past five or six years remains the most prevalent drug threat in Utah Governor Huntsman continually portrays the seriousness of Utah's problem and hopes to correct it He has expressed to the Salt Lake Tribune This is an on hands undertaking as well it should be because if we miss the mark on fighting weve we've failed as policymakers 6 |
