ARLINGTON and WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - The Second Annual Methamphetamine Initiative Conference recently drew 80 people from 13 different jurisdictions around the country who have offered their services to help combat the growing methamphetamine problem.
The event focused on the efforts of the Department of Justice's Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to deal with the problem of methamphetamine use in the United States. Daniel Boulton, spokesman for the COPS office, told Police that methamphetamine use and production can be found anywhere in the country nowadays, even in small rural towns. In areas like this, said Boulton, you can find young people using methamphetamine to work three straight shifts in a row in factories, trying to make enough money to get by. He said that the widespread nature of this problem necessitates community involvement as the police cannot combat this problem alone.
Boulton told Police, "If you have a problem like this, you can put a cop on every corner, and when the cop goes away the problem will come back."
The conference was held to facilitate the exchange of ideas between COPS methamphetamine initiative grantees, agencies awarded federal funds to bolster community efforts in dealing with the methamphetamine problem.
-- Greg Basich, editorial assistant, Police
