Grainger county, (Knoxville: attorney, law, statistics)

[phyll]

I have moved to Bean Station, I did research on it, knew it was a small town, but someone told me today, Grainger county is the worst in the USA for METH? Funny I dont remember ever reading that, I know everywhere has drugs, but Grainger is the worst?

[bbkaren]

I have read that there are a lot of variables to consider. If I recall correctly, some of these statistics go by the number of meth arrests per year.

So, if you think of it this way, there might be ten individuals who are running rinky-dink little meth labs in a given area. These guys maybe supply a few people and are probably easy targets for the police and are promptly caught and arrested.

In the meantime, in another town there might be a large operation running; with a network of distribution, maybe gang involvement, more money, and more sophisticated ways of hiding from the police and whatnot. They can produce a lot more meth--and if they were to be caught, probably only one or two arrests are reported.
_____

In addition to that, I think I read that more "slow" areas (more rural for instance) might report every little arrest that they make, while a more active area (more urban?) would report only the more serious arrests.

This could make the rural area look as bad, or worse, than the urban area crime-wise when in fact it's not the case.
_____

Again, this is all by my recollection of previous threads so I might be wrong but I think it's pretty close.

[hiknapster]

Oh, so glad you brought this up! I've been meaning to post this.

Awhile ago someone posted that meth was really big here and one or two people, maybe more, spinned that into Tennessee is tops in catching criminals, but drugs are not huge here.

I knew that half of that was true.

I still remain very impressed with local law enforcement. It seems like they always get there guy. Amazing.

But I believe that there is a bigger drug problem here than people make it out to be.

So I stumbled across an interesting piece in the Knoxville Sentinel, last week.

According to Anderson County District Attorney General Dave Clark, Anderson County has the "dubious distinction as the meth capital of a state that tops the charts for that illegal drug’s trafficking and manufacture."

So the short answer is no, Grainger County is not the meth capital of the US.

Drug situation is dire, official claims : Local News : Knoxville News Sentinel