Last week we were told two different stories about illegal drugs in America. On the one hand, Sherriffs are of the opinion that the three biggest drug issues they face right now are meth, meth, and (you guessed it!) meth.

This is, of course, BS according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, who is insisting, based on info from 2003, that we’re kidding ourselves if we think anything besides marijuana is bad bad bad! (UPDATE: I wrote this awhile ago, and it turns out they agree after all.)

Here of course, this is all old news. We’ve been at it for awhile now. I’d like to think we were ahead of the curve on elimination since we were ahead of the curve on production, but I don’t know if that’s the case. Read on and I’ll tell you why. (Note: Names have been changed to protect the innocent, guilty, and deceased.)

A friend of mine (we’ll call him Frodo) is dead because of meth. It made him crazy and he killed himself. He spent awhile working up to it, because he felt it was necessary-otherwise the monsters wouldn’t leave him alone.

For reasons still unbeknownst to anyone, Frodo carefully packed up the lab in a rubbermaid tote and stashed it in the trunk of his friend Aragorn’s car. Frodo, you see, was only an assistant cook, and was probably trying to look out for the main cook who was cooling her heels in jail. If she gave up his name they’d certainly search his car, but not his friend’s car, so he packed it up and stored it. Then he died. Needless to say, after Aragorn found Frodo and had to do all the things you have to do when you discover someone’s body, it was a few days before he went to put something in the trunk and discovered a rubbermaid tote taking up most of the space. Not being one to put a lot of things in the trunk, he opened the tote and made an educated guess at what all that stuff was for, and closed it up. He left it in the trunk and called the police immediately.

Apparently “Hi, there’s a meth lab in the trunk of my car” wasn’t enough to get the attention of the Portland Police. They said they’d send someone and didn’t. So the next day he tried “Hi, there’s a meth lab in the trunk of my car and you already have the owner in jail”. Same thing, we’ll send somebody-but still nothing. On the third day of trying to get the police interested in what he thought they would have been very interested in, Aragorn remembered he had the card of a police officer with whom he had spoken on a previous unrelated matter. So he called the officer who was, in fact, VERY interested in what Aragorn had to say.

That night a team of people in HazMat suits showed up with no advance notice, swarming around his car and generally causing an uproar in his usually quiet neighborhood. Eventually it was removed safely from his trunk and he could drive again (he didn’t really want to drive around with a meth lab in his trunk). But it took him three days and remembering he had contact information for a police officer who helped him before for Aragorn to get the attention he needed. Call me crazy, but “Hi, there’s a meth lab in my trunk AND YOU HAVE THE OWNER IN CUSTODY NOW” seems pretty attention getting to me. (note: the woman in question jumped bail, eventually did some time and is now saddled with a death sentence of Hepatitis C.)

I would like to believe that Frodo and Aragorn are the exception and not the rule. But whenever I hear about a lab being busted or someone being hauled in on meth-related charges, I wonder how many more of those there could have been if people like Aragorn got attention the first time around. I can’t help but think his situation was not the only time someone had information that could aid in delivering justice to the guilty, and if we’re supposed to be half as worked up about meth as the local media would have us believe, I wonder how many others have been in the same position but were less persistent or didn’t have that card and never found someone who was interested in what they had to say.

Related posts:

1. Gang Wars vs. Meth-heads?
2. Welcome to Oregon: air bad, meth problem not so bad
3. Meth and Milquetoast Movies - A Rant in Two Parts
4. Why We Have A Meth Problem
5. Confirming Suspicions About Firing Cops