Feature:
New
Mexico's
Comprehensive
Methamphetamine
Recommendations
Approach
"Four
Pillars"
Scope
11/4/05
A New Mexico working group on methamphetamine has released a set of comprehensive recommendations for dealing with the drug that explicitly recognizes the role of harm reduction as part of a broader strategy. While the recommendations do not extend to the outer reaches of harm reduction -- safe injection sites for IV drug users, drug maintenance therapies -- they bring New Mexico that much closer to the progressive "Four Pillars"-style drug policy adopted in Vancouver and about to be adopted in Toronto. Those policies seek to shift the official response to drug abuse from a disproportionate reliance on law enforcement to one that includes drug prevention, treatment, and most controversially, harm reduction. Co-chaired by the state "drug czar" Herman Silva and Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico office head Reena Sczcepanski, the working group brought together state, local, and federal law enforcement, the state Health Department, treatment and prevention providers, harm reduction workers, and academic specialists. Its recommendations are designed to help lawmakers craft appropriate legislation next year, as well as to assist local communities across the state in assessing their own challenges and needs. The prevention and treatment recommendations adopted by the working group are sensible, if, for the most part, unsurprising. They call on the state to "improve coordination, planning, communication and sharing of resources among agencies concerned with prevention, including local and tribal governments," "increase the number of behavioral health providers," and adopt "evidence-based treatment modalities, including alternative treatment modalities." But hints of unconventional thinking and reframing are also apparent. While countering the cross-border drug trade is usually considered a law enforcement concern, "decreasing trafficking of methamphetamine from Mexico to the United States" is buried among the prevention recommendations. And the law enforcement, or public safety, recommendations themselves have some non-traditional touches. While calls to control meth labs and to ensure their safe and effective clean-up are no surprise and neither is a recommendation regarding "drug-endangered children," the first recommendation for public safety is "reduce crimes committed by methamphetamine users through drug treatment." The working group called for examining programs to divert meth offenders from jail, community-based treatment, and expanded treatment behind bars as part of the public safety strategy. What it notably did not call for was more prisons or harsher sentencing. And while New Mexico has an ongoing, state-supported needle exchange program, the working group explicitly called for more. Some 9,000 New Mexicans are currently enrolled in exchange programs, some 2,000 of them meth injectors. New Mexico should "increase access to syringe exchange and infectious disease testing services statewide," the panel recommended. It called for needle exchange to be available at every public health office in the state and for increased funding for disease testing to ensure that every site has the ability to do testing and counseling. The popular stimulant is available throughout the state, the working group found, and while measures aimed at restricting the availability of precursor chemicals have led to a decrease in meth labs, meth use has not decreased because of the easy availability of Mexican meth. The group also identified rising meth use rates among high school students and a rise in meth-related fatalities, with a total of 56 in the last three years. The idea for an integrated methamphetamine strategy came about informally in discussions with the state Department of Health, DPA's Sczcepanski told DRCNet. "Everyone was working with their own sets of facts in their own fields, and we thought it was a good idea to bring everyone together to come up with some strategies to help lawmakers really address the concerns they have. The response we had seen so far -- things like putting pseudoephedrine behind the counter or making it easier to charge meth-making parents with child abuse -- was piecemeal and almost random," she said. Those initial discussions evolved into the New Mexico Methamphetamine Strategy. "The idea was to bring together all the experts and see what we could do," Sczcepanski said. "We really just created a list of people from law enforcement, harm reduction, prevention, and treatment, and invited the drug czar to co-chair, and here we are." "We are very concerned about the growth of meth use here in New Mexico, and with this comprehensive strategy we are trying to be as proactive as possible," said Gov. Bill Richardson's point man on drug policy, drug czar Herman Silva. "We need to come up with some prevention and some treatment for meth and we need to get our state agencies and communities working together," he told DRCNet. And Silva can live with harm reduction programs. "With these harm reduction programs, the needle exchanges and don't forget Narcan, the bottom line is you're trying to save lives. Needle exchange has worked," Silva said, and Narcan is working to reduce overdoses. We need to continue and expand these programs." New Mexico has proven receptive for several reasons, said Szczepanski. "We have a history of working with state agencies here. Part of that is the Gary Johnson legacy," she said, referring to the anti-prohibitionist former Republican governor. "We also held the 2001 conference here, and a lot of people became aware of the idea of drug policy reform then." It also helps that New Mexico, with a population of 1.8 million, is a relatively small state. "It's not that hard to find the right person, and we've generally been able to get meetings and get them to hear our ideas," she said. While some officials and sectors of the media have sensationalized the "meth menace," said Sczcepanski, drug reformers must resist the temptation to "intellectualize" about the issue. "There is no evidence overall use is up nationwide, there is research that shows treatment works, it's not instantly addictive, despite what we read in the press. The reaction from those of us in the policy world is to say this isn't really an issue, but I've been working with a meth coalition in a small New Mexico town, and the impact of meth is undeniable. Much of it is related to our punitive policies, but it is having an impact." One of the most striking things about the recommendations is the absence of more punitive measures, Sczcepanski said. "We are most excited by the recognition that instead of tougher laws we need to increase treatment capacity and look at treatment instead of incarceration. We need to find ways to divert people from prison, and if they're in prison, to ensure that treatment is available," she said. "I'm really pleased that we had no recommendations for enhancing penalties for use or trafficking." There is political support for diverting meth users out of state jails and prisons, Silva said. "There are a lot of legislators and even the governor who prefer to have prevention and treatment instead of incarceration." The meth working group will meet again next month in preparation for next year's 30-day legislative session. According to Sczcepanski, some of the recommendations could turn into bills that could be passed then. "We wanted to do something that will have an impact in the next five years," she said. "These recommendations are a roadmap."
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