Pubdate: Wed, 13 May 2009 Source: Red Bluff Daily News (CA) Copyright: 2009 Red Bluff Daily News Contact: http://redbluffdailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1079 Author: Stephen DeBoever BLACK ICE A DROP IN THE BUCKET Editor: I have more than 10,000 clients in 50 U.S. States. I serve the veteran community. Many are substance abusers, many of their children are substance abusers, even grandchildren of war veterans are substance abusers. I have significant knowledge in this area and would like to argue your article's contents and ridiculous stance. I hear all the real time drug news. I hear it from the sober, I hear it from the clinicians and I hear of it from the veterans themselves who abuse. I know of the dealing community, I am knowledgeable about the marijuana growers. The gains Tehama purports is not even close to being a marginal advance on the problem. It is rather an embarrassment to me that county is wasting money on this type of project. The recovery has been minimal when considering 800 grams of marijuana is the equivalent of 4 mature plants. The tri-county area (Butte, Tehama, Glenn counties) produce hundreds of thousands of mature plants per year. Ninety grams of methamphetamine is an extremely small amount. Considering there are many labs in the tri-county area that produce two pounds per sitting at a minimum of three times per year. The meth production is proportionately several hundred pounds per year at minimum. The task force recovered one ounce of heroin (26.5 grams), when again hundreds of ounces pass through the community per year. The gain is not significant enough to even publish. It should be Advertisement Quantcast deleted from editorial process because of failure. If you want to expound on the embarrassment of tasking 100 law enforcement officials for 10 months, this would divert a substantial amount of funds that could be used for our failing education systems and veterans services, as well as community-based services or our taxed prison system in California. Stephen DeBoever, Corning - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D