craigdailypress.com

The good news: Craig Police Department officers seized 606 grams of methamphetamine from local dealers in 2005, an increase of 630 percent from the year before. The bad news: There's no telling how much of the "walk-away drug" comes in and out of the community undetected.

"There's no way to know," police Chief Walt Vanatta said. "Any estimate would be a guess."

Health professionals contend that meth, the highly toxic, highly addictive brain-damaging stimulant, doesn't take long to turn short-time users into long-term abusers.

Although his perspective of the problem is different, Vanatta's understanding of the drug isn't.

"If you use it twice, you're hooked," Vanatta warned. "People who take it walk away from their family, their friends, their jobs ... everything."

And police are working aggressively against it.

According to the department's 2005 annual report, the meth seized by police last year has a street value of $23,500. The previous year's seizures had an estimated value of $8,300.

Vanatta, who cautioned against notions that the meth war will ever be completely won, said changes to his department's drug enforcement policies in 2005 led to the additional seizures and arrests.

"It may be more from an enforcement standpoint because we've changed the emphasis of what the task force was working on," said Vanatta, noting that last year officers with the Greater Routt and Moffat Narcotics Enforcement Team shifted priorities to arresting street-level dealers. After the small peddlers are found, police can work their way up the food chain, Vanatta said.

Although the department has, to some degree, taken a toll on the meth problem and the criminals who sell it, the public health issue has done the same to the department.

Vanatta points to evidence:

Medical costs of treating drug abusers before admittance into the jail has increased by 298 percent in the past three years.

Drug arrests in Craig have increased by 270 percent since 2001.

Police have had to use force 44 percent more for arrests since 2001, including a 50 percent increase in TASER use.

80 percent of all criminal cases are drug-related.

Vanatta said there are additional costs of the drug war such as paying additional overtime to officers, hiring more officers and providing time for officers to appear in court.

"All of that impacts how you provide service," he said.

These figures will be part of a presentation Saturday by Vanatta to 250 to 300 members of Club 20, a political advocacy group consisting of politicos and officials from municipalities throughout the Western Slope.

He will speak to the organization on the "real life impacts in western Colorado" of methamphetamine.

Although the numbers and figures relating to meth beg for additional police manpower, Vanatta holds a belief that "law enforcement is not the answer."

"I think education is the first line of defense, but after that we need some treatment options," he said. "A lot of people want to (quit). But, finding treatment options in a rural setting is a challenge."