Attorney general warns of prescription drug abuse
By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News
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The stuff has made its way into high schools and become a "huge problem," Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna told the Sequim Sunrise Rotary Club on Friday.
It's not methamphetamine he's talking about.
McKenna sought to wake up the Sunrise Rotary to what he called the next big plague: abuse of prescription narcotics.
"They're everywhere," he said.
There's OxyContin, for example — the painkiller that acts like an opiate on the brain — that when ground up and smoked "gives you the full blast" of what's prescribed as a time-released drug.
Oxy, as McKenna called it, is relatively easy for abusers to get hold of.
"These drugs are coming from us. [Teenagers] are getting them out of Grandma and Grandpa's medicine cabinet, or Mom and Dad's."
McKenna — a Republican who's seeking a second term, facing Democratic challenger and Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg in the Nov. 4 general election — told the club members that he's been around the state to 55 high schools.
Students "are getting it, when it comes to meth. They're scared of it, frankly. They should be," he said.
"Unfortunately, they're not afraid of prescription drugs."
McKenna is organizing a youth conference on prescription-drug abuse Oct. 17 and 18 in Yakima, and wants to see high schoolers from everywhere, including the North Olympic Peninsula.
Help with transportation costs is available, he said.
For information, phone the Attorney General's Port Angeles office at 360-457-2711.
Drugs pollute water
OxyContin, Vicodin and other pharmaceuticals shouldn't be tossed in the trash nor flushed down the toilet, McKenna added.
Disposing of drugs that way, he said, pollutes Puget Sound — and can put pills in the hands of abusers sifting through other people's garbage.
The attorney general has another idea he's developing along with the state Department of Ecology.
He wants to establish a system in which drugstores accept unused pills, store them in locked Dumpsters and send them to an incinerator.
The federal Drug Enforcement Agency is resistant to the idea, McKenna said.
"The DEA wants only law enforcement to handle this," but he believes the pharmaceutical industry, which already has the stores in place, could step up.
One Rotarian raised her hand to add that doctors should be more open to prescribing only a few pain pills, rather than an automatic 10- or 30-day supply.
"I've asked my doctor, 'Can I just have one or two of these?'" she said.
"You can't get that. No wonder we have a problem."
At the same time, there are cases in which people ask for far more pills than they need, or obtain more by reporting their prescriptions stolen, said Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict, who attended the Rotary meeting.
Such offenders sell the drugs on the street.
Meth persistent
Though he devoted much of his speech to prescription-drug abuse, McKenna talked afterward about meth's persistent presence on the Peninsula.
Numerous cases of child abuse or neglect are connected to drug abusers — and in 2005, every new case reported to his Port Angeles office was related to parents using, making or selling meth, he said.
Yet McKenna offered some encouraging news on the that front.
In 2001, 1,890 meth lab incidents were reported in Washington; that figure plummeted to 249 last year, he said.
"We've begun to turn the corner," in the battle with the viciously addictive substance.
Illegal-drug users are also found behind identity-theft cases, here as in the rest of the country, McKenna said.
The stealing of credit-card bills and other identifying documents has become so common, he added, that law enforcement officials such as Benedict call it "mailboxing."
One way to halt this crime: Get a locking residential mailbox, McKenna urged.
When the attorney general stopped in Sequim last September, he came with another ID-theft preventative: a Turbo Shred truck from Poulsbo.
File boxes in tow, people from Port Angeles, Port Townsend and other communities drove in and lined up at the truck's side.
McKenna said he wishes he could send the big shredder more often, but offered another idea.
"I'm hoping entrepreneurs will recognize there's a market," among consumers wanting their documents shredded periodically.
"Some banks do provide shredding, but they don't want to be inundated," he said.
Perhaps, McKenna said, local small businesses could add shredding to their list of services.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: August 16. 2008 9:00PM