By Deputy Chief Tracy Basterrechea
We have been very busy at the Police Department working with our City Leaders, Mayor’s Anti-Drug Coalition, Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council, Office of Drug Policy and our State Legislators. We have been working on a statewide texting and driving bill, a bill to ban the chemicals for making the drug “spice” and now we are working very diligently to ban the chemical used to create a new drug being marketed as “bath salts”.
In the last couple of weeks, the Boise Police Department has dealt with a couple of very disturbing incidents involving someone under the influence of these “bath salts.” In our city as well, we had a young man who was in a coma and almost lost his life, due to the use of this drug. “Bath Salts” have very similar characteristics to methamphetamine, ecstasy and or cocaine; as a matter of fact it is often referred to as “synthetic cocaine.” The City of Meridian feels we need to get ahead of this before it becomes a greater problem and before we suffer an actual death from the use of this drug. So we are taking a very active role in working with the state to curb its availability and use.
Without a doubt we have received some criticism on our work to ban “spice” and “bath salts”, however it is criticism we are happy to take. When it comes to the youth of our community, we refuse to let someone peddle poison to them. We have had business owners claim these products have legitimate use and say it is not for human consumption yet they market it to kids with names like Zombie Matter, Ace of Spades, Blue Sky, Ivory Wave etc…
The Meridian Police Department will continue to work with the public and with our Officials to keep Meridian a safe place to live, work and raise a family.