Facing up to facts
Sometimes we don't want to see what's right in front of our eyes.
We would rather squeeze our eyelids shut than look at what is really happening around us.
Take this county's meth problem.
Yes, I say meth "problem" — for that's what it seems to be. Anytime that local law enforcement have to consistently bust meth labs, especially the same ones over and over again, that's a problem.
But it's not something we like to hear. We get tired of hearing about meth. We want the newspaper to talk about something else — something happier, less depressing.
Trust me, the newspaper would love to do that. But the newspaper cannot ignore reality.
That's why you'll find a lot of information about meth in this week's issue. Maybe the stories should be subtitled like this: "More than you ever wanted to know about meth."
I know that for me, at least, learning about this was a real eye-opener.
Folks, we don't want to face it, but we have to: Meth is here in our county. It's luring our teen-agers and our adults.
It harms us all.
How? First off, and most obviously, it harms our economy. Every time a meth lab is cleaned up by the sheriff's office, a police department, or a hazmat team, that's expensive. You have to pay for the equipment — and once it's used, it has to be thrown out. You have to pay the officers and workers who are on the site. You have to pay to take all that garbage away in special waste containers where it can be stored at special area.
And meth harms us as individuals. When a person starts doing meth, it probably doesn't take much to get that high. But as they keep going, they need more and more meth to get that "buzz." Soon you're making meth. You need money to make it, so you steal. You steal cold pills from the store, or you steal money from a family member's purse.
It destroys your body, your mind, your relationships.
Meth puts people's lives at risk. When an officer walks into an active meth lab, he or she never knows if a spark could go off, hitting the chemical fumes and making the house explode.
This is just a short list of meth's pitfalls.
Meth is serious business. It's not something to joke about. Let's make sure we see the gravity of the situation.
— JENNIFER WILSON
