ROGERS — Great strides in curbing illegal methamphetamine traffic are having a backlash with increased abuse of prescription drugs, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said Friday in Rogers.
McDaniel was the featured speaker at the ninth annual Benton County Methamphetamine Awareness and Prevention Luncheon. The Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce hosts the gathering of law enforcement officials, prosecutors, judges and concerned residents. This year’s luncheon was held in the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center in Rogers.
The conference began at the height of illegal methamphetamine production and use locally. The conference was part of coordinated local efforts to address the problem. Attendees have supported both local anti-drug awareness programs and state laws that restrict the sale of over-the-counter cold medicines, a vital component of local manufacture of the illegal drug.
“If we flash back to 2004, the state Crime Laboratory was processing 1,026 meth labs seized that year,” McDaniel said.
The figure for this year was 133, the lowest level since 1996. However, abuse of prescription drugs has gone up. While not as destructive and dangerous as methamphetamine, abuse of these drugs has become a serious problem, the attorney general said. The state is working on a monitoring system for sales of these drugs to find out who is “doctor shopping to get more than one prescription for these, either for their own use or for resale,” McDaniel said.
Methamphetamine is still the most addictive and destructive drug local law enforcement has to deal with, even at reduced levels of use, said Chief Ken Farmer of the Bella Vista Police Department, who attended the conference. He agreed that prescription drug abuse is a growing problem.
“We cooperate with the attorney general and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration every time they have a drug take-back program and are glad to do it,” Farmer said.
These programs ask people to turn in unused prescription drugs to keep them out of abusers’ hands.
“Still, methamphetamine is so addictive and so damaging, it needs our focus,” Farmer said.