Democracy for Vancouver

Today’s Columbian story Commissioners OK sales tax hikes explains:

Methamphetamine and mental health treatment will receive a boost in 2007 from a countywide sales tax increase that will raise $6 million annually.

The Clark County’s sheriff’s office and judicial system also will benefit from a second sales tax increase that will raise $5 million starting in 2007. That tax will be collected only by retailers in areas outside cities.

Both tax increases were approved Wednesday as county commissioners adopted a $956.8 million budget for 2007-08.
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One program that might receive funding is Co-Occurring Methamphetamine Expanded Treatment, or COMET. The county received a three-year $1.5 million federal grant that help pays for the program, but those dollars will run out at the start of October 2007.

The COMET program assists county meth users who also have serious mental problems, such as schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder.

During a public hearing Tuesday night, commissioners heard from five COMET clients who have received help through the program, as well as others who urged them to enact the meth tax.

Speakers briefly told commissioners about the toll meth has taken on their lives. Many offered a similar message: meth users need treatment, not jail time.

Treatment programs rather than incarceration should be norm in dealing with the meth problem. But a Willamette Week article from last year points out, the meth “epidemic” is hyped constantly by mainstream media outlets, especially the regions largest newspaper, The Oregonian:

Devoting at least 261 stories to the subject in the past year and a half, The Oregonian’s ongoing investigation is an example of what can happen when a newspaper decides to lead a campaign against a social ill. In part because of the daily’s coverage, Congress has passed tough anti-meth laws and Oregon has become the home base for a rising national uproar over the powerful stimulant.
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In fact, meth use during the past four years has either declined or stayed flat, according to two major national drug-use studies. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that meth use did not increase at all from 2002 (two years before The Oregonian started its carpet-bombing coverage) through 2004, the last year for which there is data. The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future Study, which examines drug use among youth, actually shows a decline in meth use among high-school students from 1999 to 2005.

If scaring citizens is the only way to obtain funding for what should be included in the normal cost of doing governmental business, then what about the other unmet social program needs that never undergo media hysteria?