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  • Stickers like this one, posted in the window of a Laurel County pharmacy, denote that employees are trained in the Meth Watch program of the Laurel County Agency for Substance Abuse Policy. Photo by Carl Keith Greene

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March 18, 2010

Survey Says? Laurel Meth Watch making a mark

The Times-Tribune

CORBIN — By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

Work by Laurel County’s Agency for Substance Abuse Policy (ASAP) seems to be making its mark.

ASAP groups around the state were founded in 2000 on tobacco settlement money with the goal of decreasing use of illegal drugs.

The Laurel ASAP group was given a grant of $45,000 in 2007 in an effort to make Laurel Countians aware of the problems of methamphetamine use, said Christie Shrader, the Laurel ASAP’s board coordinator.

She added, the group had used about $35,000 of the grant by the end of the two years, and the rest was returned to the state.

The two-year grant was used to implement the Laurel Meth Watch program, which uses advertising and work through the schools on meth eradication.

A pair of surveys, one from 2007 and a second in 2009, were used to determine how the ASAP work has affected residents and the pharmacies and drug stores that sell cold medicines containing the major meth precursor, pseudoephedrine.

The 2007 survey taken at the London World Chicken Festival, questioned the knowledge and use of meth.

Of a total of 600, 394 surveyed answered “no” to all five questions on the survey.

On the first question of the survey, “Do you know anyone who uses meth?” 149, or about 25 percent, answered yes.

Seventy-six people reported that they knew someone who “cooks” or sells meth, about 13 percent.

Fifty-seven, or 10 percent, said they had been offered meth. Fourteen, two percent, said they had used meth.

And 20 percent, 122 people, said meth has affected their families.

In the 2009 survey at the Chicken Festival, 696 adults were asked six questions.

Asked if they knew about the Meth Watch Program, 87 percent answered yes.

Thirteen percent said they had attended one or more of the Meth Watch Community Awareness Seminars, and 92 percent on those said they shared with someone else what they had learned.

Asked to rate their satisfaction, 33 percent said they were very satisfied, while 47 percent rated themselves as simply satisfied.

Fourteen percent said they were neither satisfied or dissatisfied, four-tenths of a percent said they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Forty-eight percent said their perception of meth in Laurel County had changed in the past two years, and 85 percent said they are more aware of the dangers of meth than two years ago.

A separate survey of 51 retail pharmacy managers was made. Fifty-seven percent said theft of meth-related items decreased since they joined the Meth Watch Program.

All of them said their employees became more aware of what to look for and what to monitor in the store.

Seventy-two percent of managers reported that they noticed a decline in possible meth-related transactions since they joined Meth Watch.

And all reported being satisfied or very satisfied with the Meth Watch Program.

Shrader said Laurel is a “hot-spot” for meth abuse.

Statistics from 2009 showed Laurel County accounted for 87 percent of meth labs found in the Tri-County. The Kentucky State Police reported that 2009 was an all-time high in the number of the labs discovered.

For more information  on Meth Watch, call Shrader at 606-877-8618.

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