Kendra Wetterland didn't mind all that much when her mom decided to start testing her for pot smoking with a home test kit from a store. "I didn't understand why she would do that if she knew I was using, but it showed she cared," said the 16-year-old from Gig Harbor, Wash. Trouble was, Kendra was smoking pot at the time, but the tests her mother administered twice a month never gave a positive result. She is now in treatment for methamphetamine use. [continues 376 words]
The Kitsap County methamphetamine problem menaces nearly every social institution. Here's how meth use costs us all. Claudia Peetz returned from work one night to find her Bremerton home ransacked. Pieces of her broken television littered the front steps. Piles of insulation lay everywhere, pulled from crawl spaces by burglars looking for hidden valuables. Even her dead husband's ashes had been dumped on the floor. "They just went through everything," said Peetz. "It was devastating." Thousands of dollars worth of items were missing, including cherished mementoes from a long marriage. [continues 2683 words]
The Methamphetamine Epidemic Has Increased The Need For Triage Care. Every day, at least one seriously disturbed methatnphetamine user arrives at the Harrison Hospital emergency department. "That person is often so disruptive, possibly violent, that extra security comes in and puts them in another room," said Patti Hart, spokeswoman for Harrison. Usually, the person is brought in by police or fire department medics. Often, the user also is mentally ill, but he rarely needs medical treatment. It's just that there's no other place to take him. The jail is full and isn't the right place for him, either. He needs to be detoxified and brought down from his drug, before an accurate diagnosis can be given. He may need mental-health care, or drug treatment or both. [continues 526 words]
Kitsap Bucks State Numbers The sheriff blames methamphetamine use for the increase in unincorporated areas of the county. Violent crime is skyrocketing in unincorporated Kitsap County despite state and national trends to the contrary. The latest crime statistics from the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs confirm what earlier figures foreshadowed: Incidents of violent crime in Kitsap County rose by more than a third between 1999 and 2000. The percentage increase is one of the highest in the state, and contrasts sharply with a statewide increase in violent crime of only one-tenth of 1 percent. [continues 259 words]
