Editorial: Methamphetamine’s toll

Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto last week gave state lawmakers a recitation of some troubling facts about the methamphetamine problem in Nevada.

Testifying in front of a joint legislative committee, she said that methamphetamine "places a large toll not only on our communities and families but also our state and local agencies."

According to a federal survey, Nevada has the nation's highest per-capita number of people who have:

The survey, estimating use from 2002 to 2004, figured that 2 percent of Nevadans 12 and older had used methamphetamine in the past year.

While Cortez Masto said she could "make a case (that) every agency in our state has felt the impact of meth," she said prisons, police, schools and social services were facing the worst impact. She said, for example:

There is no doubt that methamphetamine is a serious problem. It is terribly addictive and its effects - from the poor health of users to their crimes - weigh on society. It affects every Nevadan either directly or indirectly through the use of state tax dollars and resources that are funneled toward fighting the scourge of the drug.

The question is, how does the Legislature address the problem? Cortez Masto is leading the governor's task force on methamphetamine and hopes to give lawmakers recommendations in April on how to battle it. The task force, and lawmakers, need to look beyond the numbers and address methamphetamine not just as a problem of crime or public health, but also as the epidemic it has become.