The ills of methamphetamine use are no stranger to Jefferson County. Drug abuse is wreaking havoc on families and landing innocent children smack dab in the middle of the chaos, district court officials said in a recent interview.
Skyrocketing methamphetamine use is taking its toll and resulting in a similar boom in cases of child abuse and neglect, said Kate Juran, who heads the non-profit Fifth Judicial District Voice for Children, the local CASA program. CASA (court-appointed special advocate) volunteers stand up for the best interests of the children caught up in the court system.
Juran said the number of neglected/abused children cases has soared. In all of last year, there were sixteen court hearings on children caught up in the melee. In roughly the first three months of 2017 the court had already surpassed that number, she said. Finding articles in the Monitor archives about meth cases in recent months is easy – and unsettling.
In January a 52-year-old Billings woman was convicted of driving 95 miles per hour on Interstate 90, some of that going the wrong way.
In March a Helena woman was convicted of stealing guns and equipment from the Montana City home of her uncle while on meth.
In April a Boulder woman admitted meth use led her to be found sleeping in a neighbor’s vehicle, disoriented and confused. She allegedly said she was driving to pick up a child.
In May a woman admitted meth was the reason she was parked and dazed beside a road in northern Jefferson County. That is only a PARTIAL list of the CONVICTIONS related to meth of late. There are lots of other cases making their way through the local courts, and practically every Wednesday when court is held more cases related to meth arise.
Just this past week, life in Basin was in an uproar as federal marshals searched the area for a man wanted for failing to appear in federal court on a charge of criminal distribution of meth. Beginning with this week’s issue, the Monitor will run a series of four articles about methamphetamine use in the state. The four articles are part of a longer series written by journalism students at the University of Montana.
This week’s issue also includes an opinion piece by Sen. Steve Daines about meth use in Montana. We hope readers will take the time to read all of the coverage and think about what it means for our community. It is not something that is happening elsewhere, in some distant, big city. It is happening in our own backyard, and ignoring the problems is not going to make them disappear no matter how much we wish it would.
