Sonoma’s leaders working on Valley’s top concern

The recent rash of petty and not-so-petty crime points to a larger problem that a recent survey said is Sonoma’s top concern: crime and gang-related activity. Less obvious, and harder to quantify is the problem underlying and perpetuating that problem: n-methyl-1-phenyl-propan-2-amine, methamphetamine, or meth. “You can talk about gangs and you can talk about drugs,” said District 1 County Supervisor Valerie Brown, “but you can’t talk about gangs without drugs.”
“We had a report from the human services department, which did a study on meth and child welfare in Sonoma County,” said Brown, quoting the statistic that shocked her and others into action. “Countywide, 49 percent of the open child welfare cases in Sonoma County are meth-related.” High as that percentage is, it reflects only the known cases; many more may never reach human services.
Brown has been working with the Sonoma County Methamphetamine Prevention Task Force to educate and facilitate change. “The hard part was you had to go out and convince the public that you had a problem. And they didn’t particularly want to hear it,” said Brown. Even alert parents can miss their child’s drug use, assuming that the odd behavior is just “adolescence.” Kids can hide it up to a point, but the drug, made from combinations of drain cleaners, sodium hydroxide, fertilizers, gasoline and other noxious substances, ravages the body, rots teeth and gums, ruins skin and causes organ damage. It is more dangerous than crack cocaine because of the physical effects and the length of time it takes to de-toxify.
The appeal of the drug is that it is cheap, available, and creates euphoria in women and a feeling of strength in men. “When someone’s on meth,” said Rebecca Hermosillo, who works with the Task Force, “they’re super strong. If we could solve this problem, we’d curb the crime rate.” The community’s response to the problem has given her hope. “People are trying to make a difference and to have a better community,” she said.
Brown agrees, “The good news is everybody is involved. We’re all on it,” she said. But the depth of the problem, as reported, had surprised her. “When I heard about other counties, I assumed we had it under control, but when I set about asking questions I realized we didn’t …. We had people who had been incarcerated 30 times and in drug court six times before something clicked that there’s a treatment program that worked, or a judge saying we’re going to test you, it took that long.”
Brown is working to create transparency within the agencies so that people don’t get caught and then processed simply for one thing or another, while the drug element, which may power the problem, is overlooked. “This IS the perfect storm,” she said, “The way to get out of it is to look at all the things that build into it. No one group can fix it.”