Methamphetamine addiction is on the rise, the Crow Wing County Board heard Tuesday.
“We have families that are addicted to meth,” said Pat Sharbonda, Crow Wing County social worker. “It’s such an intense drug so many things can go wrong in these families.
“Safety factors, risk factors are through the roof. We have children being born testing positive for meth. We have toddlers in the home testing positive for meth.”
The county’s meth calls have increased, said Lynda Erickson, Crow Wing County supervisor for the Child Protection Assessment Unit.
Erickson recalled previous years when meth labs were a problem in the county before enforcement efforts cut labs down.
“We are getting more calls now than we did then,” Erickson said. “It’s worse than it’s ever been.”
Sharbonda said they aren’t seeing the labs as they did before but the drug is here. Parents who kicked the meth habit five years ago have now returned to the drug, Erickson said.
“An old user buddy comes and has some meth, it’s that much of a craving, that much of an addition they are right back into it,” Sharbonda said.
The intensity level of the cases is high, Sharbonda said. In the past case workers may have had 50 percent of their case load in intense cases. Now that number is closer to 80 percent, Sharbonda said.
Six years ago, Sharbonda said it wasn’t uncommon to have a portion of a case worker’s load as maintenance, checking in with people who may have fallen away without the support. Now those cases are closed out faster so case workers can move on to the more intense cases, he said.
RENEE RICHARDSON may be reached at 855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Dispatchbizbuzz.
Comments (11)
Add commentMad about meth
The meth addict easily gives up everything for the high they get from it - we learned this when a family member opted to give up four children so the meth high could continue. Two of the children were born addicted, the other two have learning, social and mental disorders. They are now safe from being exposed to the evils of meth.
It's time for our lawmakers to come up with tougher punishment, and all law enforcement agencies pay more attention, especially when there are children in the homes where Meth is suspected. Time to punish the guilty and free the innocent children from the addiction.
use your brain
remove the children to foster care and put them up for adoption! quit paying welfare to the meth head parents-we are getting nothing out of the welfare payments except MORE meth heads! what a waste to pay for a welfare worker to push paperwork on these idiots!
Sure is a good thing we can't buy sudafed over the counter!
Surprise, surprise, worse now than it was then. Fat lot of good the ban on sudafed purchases did! Last time my whole family was sick with a simple cold I went to three different places to find some. Two of them had none, the other only allowed a single box to be purchased. I remember when law enforcement officials swore up and down that making the cheap, effective cold medication very hard to get and limiting how much you can buy to just a box or two would solve the meth problem, but we'd still be able to get the drugs we need.
F. A. I. L.
Oh, and Moonhawk
It's cheaper to push paper on "those idiots" kids than it is to pull the kids and put them in foster care. A lot cheaper! And the county is looking to cut corners and money wherever they can. The problem is getting worse, it's getting more expensive to deal with. The supply line went from local idjits with home labs to Mexican drug runners with large intelligent distribution networks that are much harder to totally snuff out.
take it easy kjc
I have to admit the post from JohnBrown is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time. Keep it up the world we live in needs the humor and less PCness.
The problems with this
The problems with this country is that the penalties are not strong enough. First offense 20 years. PERIOD. I would gladly pay in this liberal state of Minnesota to support the meth heads in prison. Believe me the word will spread. Don't use or else. It's the children that suffer. I don't think you bloggers really understand the effects this drug has on the unborn. We continue to pay for the effects of this drug on our children. For God's sake America,,,,,,WAKE UP.
Meth Sellers
The people selling meth in the long run are killing children. Don't fill the prisons with them, give them the death penalty and get rid of them. that will wake-up the rest of them.
Here's to justice
How expensive is justice?
Pretty darn costly. But depending on your point of view, the costs of keeping criminals behind bars or executing them might be worth it.
What can’t be argued, though, is that incarceration and execution are both terribly cost-ineffective methods of dealing with criminals. Probation and parole, for instance, are far less expensive.
It costs an average of $3.42 a day to keep a prisoner on probation, and $7.47 to keep that same prisoner on parole. Compare that with how costly it is to keep prisoners locked up; it costs an average of $78.95 each day to keep a criminal behind bars.
Now, depending on the crime, you might think that cost is worth it to keep dangerous criminals off the street. Consider this, though: It costs more to keep someone in prison for one day that it costs to keep that person on parole or probation for 22.
What about execution?
This isn’t cheap, either. It costs $86.08 to provide the drugs needed to perform a single lethal injection. Overall, executions are extremely costly to the states that perform them.
The average execution in California, for instance, costs $90,000. In Washington state, this cost stands an even higher $700,000.
The death penalty has been even costlier in New Jersey. The state pays $253 million to house all of its death-row inmates each year. That’s because, as of the writing of this story, New Jersey had suspended its executions. Of course, it still has to do something with those death-row inmates.
States, though, aren’t cutting back on the amount of money they are spending on new prisons. Eight states, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming, have spent 88 percent of their additional corrections spending since 1983 on prisons.
Overall, based on 2007 data, one in every 31 adults in the United States is under correctional control. Georgia has the dubious distinction of leading the nation in the percentage of its residents under correctional control, one out of every 13.
Other states aren’t far behind. They include Idaho, one in 18; Texas, one in 22; Massachusetts, one in 24; Ohio, one in 25; and Minnesota, Indiana and Louisiana, all of which stand at one in 26.
The states on the other end of the spectrum include New Hampshire, with one out of every 88 adults under correctional control; Maine, one in 81; West Virginia, one in 68; Utah, one in 64; and North Dakota, one in 63
grandstanding on pet subject
You neglected to relate it to the article. Given your topic and your handle, you might have something useful to say on the article's subject. Do you? Don't just paste in a pre-set piece that's off-topic. Speak up.
@molose
Thank you for the kind words. I agree that a little humor is a necessary component to a good life.
It appears someone complained about that satirical piece I posted yesterday? Doctor O. Hai will be most displeased.
Would be nice to know what possible problem the dispatch has
With a little harmless humor.
I posted a reply and link to another fine piece of scientific work, don't think it stayed up for an hour before it was gone as well!