WSMI: History

In late 1999, a retired Washington State Patrol Officer, through his work with narcotics enforcement, became fully aware of the implications of the burgeoning methamphetamine problem facing the state. While the immediate impacts fell upon the law enforcement community, it was also very apparent that methamphetamine presented a very unique problem compared to other drugs, in that it struck so many other aspects of the community. Furthermore, it was clear that as the epidemic spread, it threatened to outstrip state and local resources to deal with it.

The office solicited the support of the Pierce County Alliance, a treatment provider, and the Safe Streets Campaign, a community mobilization group, along with local and state law enforcement and state ecology representatives to discuss the impending crisis of methamphetamine and how they might organize to deal with the problem.

This organizing group recognized that the primary challenge was to communicate the problem to policymakers as well as to the broader community because the comprehensive impacts of methamphetamine, with its severity and potential long-term cost implications, were as yet, wholly unappreciated. A key element was the need to overcome the general perception that methamphetamine was just another drug of choice among a panoply of illicit drugs available on the street. In fact, the far-reaching environmental, property, personal, and community safety impacts promised to be devastating.

The organizing group agreed that the first order of business was to identify the sectors that were impacted and to bring in professionals from the appropriate disciplines to help assess the needs and identify the relative costs of the impacts within the respective areas.