|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
| 20 March 2001 - North County Times County's Methamphetamine Strike Force claims victories By Jo Moreland SAN DIEGO – Five years after the county's Methamphetamine Strike Force was formed, supporters said Monday they're seeing results – especially in North County. Some meth lab operators in North County have shifted farther north, there are fewer meth labs county-wide and meth-related deaths are down in the county, said officials of the multi-agency strike force. They said a North County program that rescues children from regional homes where the drug was made, sold or used – the San Diego County Drug Endangered Children's program – is becoming a model for the nation. "We have removed 363 children from these types of homes," said Rhonda Oliver, a county child protective services worker assigned to the program. "Certainly this program was a pet project for the Methamphetamine Strike Force." Fourteen percent of the children 5 and under who were taken from meth homes tested positive for drugs, Oliver said. She said the children are placed in a system that cares for them when their parents are arrested. "Children as young as 4 have been able to describe their parents' drug use," said Oliver. County Supervisor Dianne Jacob called for the formation of the strike force after the Medical Examiner's office found meth in the bodies of 89 people during the first half of 1995. Since the task force began in 1996, about 25 fewer people every year have died in meth-related deaths in the county, officials said. "That's a sign of progress," said county health director Rodger G. Lum, strike force co-chair. "But it's also an indication that meth remains a major health problem in our county and the strike force's work is far from over." |
||
|
