River Cities Business Journal: Health

Special to the River Cities Business Journal

KINGMAN - “Funding anti-meth programs may save countless lives,” Chairman of the Mohave County Board of Supervisors Pete Byers said Monday, Nov. 6.

The Board voted funding for the Arizona Meth Project and the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Colorado River MethSMART program during their regular meeting Nov. 6.

“I have to credit Tom Sockwell as being a leader in trying to do something about this deadly meth problem we have in Mohave County,” Byers said. “The problem is national, but we see it every day here in our rural area. A high percentage of all local crime, from theft to murder, can be traced to meth usage. Tom has brought this up many times.”

Byers and Sockwell attended the Arizona County Supervisors Association Legislative Summit in September. At that meeting in Prescott, Maricopa County Chairman of the Board of Supervisors Don Stapley and Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard gave a presentation regarding The Arizona Meth

Project, modeled after, and incorporating, the Siebel Foundation's Montana Meth Project. Stapley and Goddard sought a statewide united front in the war against deadly methamphetamine.

Of the $3 million appropriated this year by the state for county distribution to deal with methamphetamine interdiction efforts, Maricopa County received $1,397,268 while Mohave County received $117,988.

“The Maricopa County Board has already pledged $2.5 million to this project,” Stapley wrote in a letter to supervisors, “in addition to the funding anticipated in HB2554 (that county's $1,397,268 share).”

The Arizona project will have access to the multi-million dollar media campaign products developed for The Montana Meth Project. The public service announcements (PSAs) are, according to Stapley, “high quality multi-mediaproducts with high market saturation rates,” designed for television, radio, print publishing, billboards and the Web.

“These television and radio PSAs are professionally produced in Hollywood,” Mohave County Manager Ron Walker said in September. “They are powerful messages designed to reduce first-time meth use among youth. We will see these products on network and local television and radio. They can also be used to develop lesson plans for schools and youth organizations.”

“Tom and I were very impressed by the attorney general's presentation in Prescott,” Byers said. “We also applaud Maricopa County's extensive funding for this innovative state-wide program.

“But Tom also looked into the Boys and Girls Club MethSMART program and found it to be equally impressive. I knew from his statements during prior Board meetings that he believed strongly in favor of funding that program and I agreed; it needed to be funded. I also wanted to make sure the Arizona Meth Project had our full support.

“That is why I motioned to send the full $117,988 to the state program and to send $50,000 from our Contingency Fund to support the MethSMART program,” Byers said. “These two major educational programs will fight side-by-side to save young lives from turning onto the dead-end meth road. Both programs will show our young people the frightening reality of that drug.

“The complete Board knows what meth is doing to our youth and our communities,” he said. “We needed to step up to the plate and put our support behind this fight. With Tom's understanding of the issues and support for the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Board came through. If we can save one kid with each program, we've won. I'm very happy we were able to fund these programs.”