Southern Oregon and METH (Portland, Eugene: houses, closing, places to live)

[cvanripe10]

I hear southern oregon has a terrible problem with Methamphetamine. Is this true? I hear it is to the point of an epidemic.

How bad is it?

[GueroLoco]

Meth is pretty much everywhere, except for New England. And that still might not be true for all i know. Yes, a big deal is made about the meth problem in Oregon. Ive never lived in Medford, but Ive lived in Eugene, Salem and Portland, and it can be be kind of bad in some areas. And the Medford area more than likely functions as a transhipment point for drugs enering the Pac NW from points south in California and Mexico. Granted, the Rogue Valley may have meth, but overall the communities there are very safe places to live in when compared to other urban areas west of The Cascades; not to mention communities Ive lived elsewhere in the US that have some real problems with drugs and crime.

Point is, you shouldnt worry at all about Oregon. Alot of people that live in the state tend to blow things out of proportion when talking about the severity of drugs, crime, etc.

[seekNsun]

I cannot speak for the Rogue Valley, but it is quite a problem in Klamath Falls. And as a general rule: the problem is worse than it appears. It is very noticeable to me when I go to the supermarket (Walmart is the worst, but I choose not to shop there) or see a great majority of low skill retail workers, cooks, etc. strung out. I can certainly tell that the problem is worse here than most other places I've lived.

[Patrick D]

pretty much statewide, though it's gotten a whole lot better since cold medicine is now behind the counter

[Imperial1904]

Originally Posted by GueroLoco

Point is, you shouldnt worry at all about Oregon. Alot of people that live in the state tend to blow things out of proportion when talking about the severity of drugs, crime, etc.

Very true. I grew up in San Diego, meth capital of the world during the 80's and 90's. The only reason why meth is such a big deal in Southern Oregon is because they really don't have anything else to worry about.

I cannot speak for the Rogue Valley, but it is quite a problem in Klamath Falls. And as a general rule: the problem is worse than it appears. It is very noticeable to me when I go to the supermarket (Walmart is the worst, but I choose not to shop there) or see a great majority of low skill retail workers, cooks, etc. strung out. I can certainly tell that the problem is worse here than most other places I've lived.

I've lived in Klamath Falls for the past few years and I barely notice anyone like you claim to see. Klamath Falls does have alot of weird looking people though. When something happens here, the locals tend to make such a huge deal about it and think "Oh my God, it's out of control!!!" You might notice it more because you either lived here for a long time or because there isn't many people here that they stand out more. Whatever it is, in my opinion, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I will say this... the more meth heads they catch and put in jail, the better.

[chrisruns2far]

Originally Posted by cvanripe10

I hear southern oregon has a terrible problem with Methamphetamine. Is this true? I hear it is to the point of an epidemic.

How bad is it?

Grants Pass/Josephine County has the highest level of domestic violence of any county in Oregon and it also has by far the most meth/crack contaimenated homes (#1 for the last six years) of any county as listed and documented on the state website </TITLE> <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html><link rel="stylesheet" href="wrapper/agency_pinot_v3.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../wrapper/oregonGov_v3.css" type="text/css"> <title>Drug Lab Information

[mdvaden]

Originally Posted by chrisruns2far

Grants Pass/Josephine County has the highest level of domestic violence of any county in Oregon and it also has by far the most meth/crack contaimenated homes (#1 for the last six years) of any county as listed and documented on the state website </TITLE> <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html><link rel="stylesheet" href="wrapper/agency_pinot_v3.css" type="text/css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../wrapper/oregonGov_v3.css" type="text/css"> <title>Drug Lab Information

Actually, you should list individual page links so people don't need to guess.

If you are referring to the page on the site which lists "unfit" houses, that's not a page listing total numbers of houses. It states in a note that the houses can be added or removed depending on whether or not the problem was corrected. So, suppose that Tillamook County shows zero, that can mean that there were 40 houses, but they were all corrected and removed from the list.

If that's the page you meant, its quite hard to know for certain what is what based on that one alone.

Is there another page link you were referring too?

Either way, the number of labs in a city may or may not be associated with that town's drug use. It may be a matter of rent, housing availability, or the ease of escaping detection. One county may be producing for several counties.

If you have some more complete statistics, feel free to post them for a more complete picture.

[LADY_DI]

why do people want to blame all the probels in the world on oregon???/

oregon is not the only state that has drugs in it cal has a big problem, az the east coast;

oregon is a great state and im happy that i live here i moved here in feb 07 and love it, so many things to do

DO ALL YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE THAT KEEP BASHING OREGON PLEASE STOP

[freedom]

Extreme environmentalism and litigation has led to the drug problems in So. Oregon.

My train of thought is that people with hope, work, and goals will be less likely to engage in drug use. The extremeism has led to unnecessary job loss in the forest products industry, and has stopped the timber receipts that the counties had built their gov't budgets on for the last 100 yrs.

Recent awareness and legislation regarding the access to the raw chemicals used to produce meth has been very effective. Josephine and Jackson counties are the most active I have seen in combating the labs and that is why it is thought to be more of a problem here. Other areas have the issue but may not be as aggresive at fighting it.
So there are figures out there and statistics, but they show we are winning and fighting harder than anywhere else, so lab busts would be higher, it doesn't mean that there are more here, we are just closing them down at a record pace, even with a smaller law enforcement presence..

[chrisruns2far]

[quote=freedom;1497547]Extreme environmentalism and litigation has led to the drug problems in So. Oregon.

My train of thought is that people with hope, work, and goals will be less likely to engage in drug use. The extremeism has led to unnecessary job loss in the forest products industry, and has stopped the timber receipts that the counties had built their gov't budgets on for the last 100 yrs.

Fact: More board feet of timber was cut in Oregon from 1980-1990 than in any previous decade in Oregon history, including all the last reamining strands of old growth in the state (all but 3% remains), and during that exact same timeframe the largest amount of timber mill and timber related jobs where lost. Also, nearly 1/3 of all Oregon timber mills closed down during that same decade of record timber harvesting. Why? Over 85% of all trees cut during that time where sent overseas (Primarily Asia) in order for timber companies to maxamize their profits by circumventing American labor costs for cheap labor overseas. Timber receipts were fixed at the unsustainable rate of timber cutting done from 1970-1990, it was flawed and unsustainable from the begining, but I support the on-going need of timber payments to counties that have so much public land to help fund education and other vital services, but it needs to be based in more realistic numbers in order to have a longer life span in the Federal appropiation scheme of things. The timber industry facilitated its own demise thru greed and gluttony and never cared about its labor force. Globalization is what is drivinig down the middle class and the timber industry is representative of the mindset that thinks the American Worker is a liability, something to be avoided as much as possible to bring industry/corporations a couple of extra dollars per share of stock, thereby externalizing all the problems created that undermine communities, families and individuals.