David Hawpe Nails This One: Kentucky Makes News, But Not The Way It Wants.
Kentucky makes news, but not the way it wants
By David Hawpe
Well, we made the national news again.
Yesterday the wires told the rest of the country about a toddler in Monticello who died after drinking liquid drain cleaner, which had been left in a cup during the manufacture of methamphetamine.
What 22-month-old Kayden Branham drank contained sulfuric acid, and he died of chemical burns.
Apparently, his mother was 14 years old, and his father 19. And those who love to stereotype Kentucky will have a field day with that. The couple might as well have been sitting around sucking squirrel brains.
The facts about the drug problem in Kentucky are bad enough without the typecasting.
The Monticello case is just the latest horror story associated with meth, which has spread dramatically across the state over the past decade.
In 1998, a total of 19 meth labs were discovered in Kentucky, but those numbers soon began to rise.
Allison Martin, speaking for the office of Attorney General Jack Conway, explained, "We did see a downturn — from 589 meth labs discovered in 2005 to 344 found in 2006." And the total dropped further in 2007, to 302, but shot back up last year to 405.
"The biggest concern for everyone in law enforcement," Martin emphasized, "is that about 80 percent of the cases involve children there are children in the home."
And those kids can be hurt in a number of ways, including by breathing fumes from the meth operations, suffering burns in meth lab explosions or encountering chemicals left behind by previous meth-making tenants.
Meth has kept Kentucky law enforcement especially busy this past week:
Police and dogs tracked 32-year-old Bobby Green to a Laurel County field where he was crouched, after fleeing from a meth lab. Green also was charged on Powell County warrants for manufacturing methamphetamine and evading arrest.
Two Adair County men, one 37 years old and the other 45, were collared after Kentucky State Police troopers found a meth lab operating near Cundiff.
The Times-Tribune in Corbin reported that Lisa Steely was given two years and one month in prison and a three-year supervised release. She had been accused of conspiring with Everett Morgan and Richard Smith to distribute methamphetamine.
A Louisville woman, Carole Clifford, was charged with making meth at a home on Remembrance Lane, in the process exposing a 23-month-old, a 10-month- old and a 16-year-old to hazardous fumes.
An Owensboro man, Larry Adams, was arrested at his home and accused of making meth across the Ohio River.
The problem shows up in many places. If you look at a Drug Enforcement Agency listing of drug labs that have been found in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, you'll see thousands of home addresses in many kinds of neighborhoods.
According to real estate inspector Dan Schuerman, quoted in The Kentucky Post , "For every pound of meth that's made, you'll have about six to eight pounds of toxic waste produced." His firm, Schuerman Inspections, makes a business of detecting meth labs and their remnants, for home buyers, landlords and motel/hotel owners.
Louisville has been a meth-making center. The city has 200-plus pharmacies, as contrasted against fewer than 10 in surrounding counties. So there are lots of places here to buy the ingredients for cooking the stuff, even though drug stores now keep such materials behind the counter, log their sale and connect those logs to a computerized database that police monitor.
While the rest of the state was seeing that downturn in meth busts a couple of years ago, the numbers in Louisville were going up. But that's both good and bad.
The good news is that Louisville received a $450,000 federal drug-fighting grant in 2007, most of which was to be used for educating folks about the meth business, including telltale signs that suggest the presence of a meth lab in the neighborhood. About 80 percent of the funds have been spent on awareness efforts, including public service announcements and billboards. Special emphasis has been placed on educating first responders and others who have reason to be out in the community.
As a result, says Louisville Metro Police drug specialist Sgt. Stan Salyards, "We're identifying more meth labs, due to the public's help. … The last three years we've been No. 1 in the state in meth labs found and cleaned up, and we will be No. 1 again this year."
He's proud of that progress. "I'd love to get rid of them all," he says, "but at least we're finding them and doing something about them."
That probably won't make the national news, but at least you know.
David Hawpe's columns appear Wednesdays and Sundays in the Community Forum. His e-mail address is dhawpe@courier-journal.com.
By David Hawpe
Well, we made the national news again.
Yesterday the wires told the rest of the country about a toddler in Monticello who died after drinking liquid drain cleaner, which had been left in a cup during the manufacture of methamphetamine.
What 22-month-old Kayden Branham drank contained sulfuric acid, and he died of chemical burns.
Apparently, his mother was 14 years old, and his father 19. And those who love to stereotype Kentucky will have a field day with that. The couple might as well have been sitting around sucking squirrel brains.
The facts about the drug problem in Kentucky are bad enough without the typecasting.
The Monticello case is just the latest horror story associated with meth, which has spread dramatically across the state over the past decade.
In 1998, a total of 19 meth labs were discovered in Kentucky, but those numbers soon began to rise.
Allison Martin, speaking for the office of Attorney General Jack Conway, explained, "We did see a downturn — from 589 meth labs discovered in 2005 to 344 found in 2006." And the total dropped further in 2007, to 302, but shot back up last year to 405.
"The biggest concern for everyone in law enforcement," Martin emphasized, "is that about 80 percent of the cases involve children there are children in the home."
And those kids can be hurt in a number of ways, including by breathing fumes from the meth operations, suffering burns in meth lab explosions or encountering chemicals left behind by previous meth-making tenants.
Meth has kept Kentucky law enforcement especially busy this past week:
Police and dogs tracked 32-year-old Bobby Green to a Laurel County field where he was crouched, after fleeing from a meth lab. Green also was charged on Powell County warrants for manufacturing methamphetamine and evading arrest.
Two Adair County men, one 37 years old and the other 45, were collared after Kentucky State Police troopers found a meth lab operating near Cundiff.
The Times-Tribune in Corbin reported that Lisa Steely was given two years and one month in prison and a three-year supervised release. She had been accused of conspiring with Everett Morgan and Richard Smith to distribute methamphetamine.
A Louisville woman, Carole Clifford, was charged with making meth at a home on Remembrance Lane, in the process exposing a 23-month-old, a 10-month- old and a 16-year-old to hazardous fumes.
An Owensboro man, Larry Adams, was arrested at his home and accused of making meth across the Ohio River.
The problem shows up in many places. If you look at a Drug Enforcement Agency listing of drug labs that have been found in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, you'll see thousands of home addresses in many kinds of neighborhoods.
According to real estate inspector Dan Schuerman, quoted in The Kentucky Post , "For every pound of meth that's made, you'll have about six to eight pounds of toxic waste produced." His firm, Schuerman Inspections, makes a business of detecting meth labs and their remnants, for home buyers, landlords and motel/hotel owners.
Louisville has been a meth-making center. The city has 200-plus pharmacies, as contrasted against fewer than 10 in surrounding counties. So there are lots of places here to buy the ingredients for cooking the stuff, even though drug stores now keep such materials behind the counter, log their sale and connect those logs to a computerized database that police monitor.
While the rest of the state was seeing that downturn in meth busts a couple of years ago, the numbers in Louisville were going up. But that's both good and bad.
The good news is that Louisville received a $450,000 federal drug-fighting grant in 2007, most of which was to be used for educating folks about the meth business, including telltale signs that suggest the presence of a meth lab in the neighborhood. About 80 percent of the funds have been spent on awareness efforts, including public service announcements and billboards. Special emphasis has been placed on educating first responders and others who have reason to be out in the community.
As a result, says Louisville Metro Police drug specialist Sgt. Stan Salyards, "We're identifying more meth labs, due to the public's help. … The last three years we've been No. 1 in the state in meth labs found and cleaned up, and we will be No. 1 again this year."
He's proud of that progress. "I'd love to get rid of them all," he says, "but at least we're finding them and doing something about them."
That probably won't make the national news, but at least you know.
David Hawpe's columns appear Wednesdays and Sundays in the Community Forum. His e-mail address is dhawpe@courier-journal.com.
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