Drug task force makes presentation at Chief's Briefing luncheon

Flathead Valley Chemical Dependency Clinic (FVCDC) and the Sanders County DUI Task Force held a Chief’s Briefing luncheon April 7 at the Plains-Paradise Senior Center to recognize and show their appreciation to local law enforcement officers for the work they do on helping keep alcohol and drugs away from children in Sanders and Mineral counties.

After some introductions and socializing, the luncheon for the nine law enforcement officers who attended began. During the luncheon, there was a presentation by Jennifer McPherson. She is the Prevention Specialist with FVCDC. She gave a PowerPoint presentation on the results from the 2016 Montana Prevention Needs Assessment (MPNA), which is a survey of high school students in grades 8, 10, and 12. This survey is done every even numbered year in all of the high schools in Montana. There are several unique aspects to the survey that help with the validity. One is if the student reports extremely high use of drugs, another is if the age doesn’t match the grade, and there is a drug mentioned in the survey that isn’t real. Those items help the survey screen out more of the potential false information given by some of the students.

The results of the (MPNA) were for the entire state and could be broken down to specific information for only Sanders County. The survey indicated that most children begin to have their first drink of alcohol at the age of 12. McPherson described where the children are getting the alcohol.

“What really bothered me is that 59.9 percent of the children are getting the alcohol they are drinking from the parent’s home, either with or without the parent’s permission,” she said. “That really hit me in the gut.”

McPherson also discussed how e-cigarettes have shown up for the first time on the survey. She did mention that alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana are the three major drugs being used by children in Sanders County. Prescription drugs and sedatives are starting to show up more in the survey each year. In Sanders County, there was no report of methamphetamine use by students on the survey.

John Marshall from the Sanders County DUI Task Force was present at the luncheon and spoke about how important it is to have the ability to use a cell phone to anonymously report a DUI and other crimes.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has said that an anonymous call to law enforcement is probable cause to do a traffic stop,” he said. “Idaho has the ability now for anyone to use their cell phone and anonymously call in a DUI by dialing *477 to contact the Idaho State Police.”

Marshall indicated that he sees the need for the same thing here in Montana because of a DUI case years ago where the 911 call reporting a driver to police was turned over to the defendant who then recorded the call and played it in a bar, which caused trouble for the person and his wife who had lived in the community and they had to move because of that incident. Marshall mentioned how easy it would be for Montana to develop and implement the cell service to anonymously report a DUI and any other crimes. He spoke with the law enforcement officers to see what they thought about it and if they could help him make it happen.

Marshall described a billboard art contest that is going to be open to high school students and is being done by the Sanders County DUI Task Force and the high schools.

“We have an art contest that is happening in the high schools where the winning art will become a billboard on MT Highway 200 at the Idaho and Montana border and at Ravalli,” he said. “There will be prizes for the winner, second, and third places. The contest will run from April 17 until May 15. We hope this will become an annual contest and have more students entering it each year.”

The law enforcement officers present discussed the many challenges facing their organizations, with the lack of funds and manpower resources being the two largest challenges they have in common. Many of them indicated if they had the money and manpower, they would like to do more to bust the keggar parties that are happening in the woods.

Sanders County Sheriff Tom Rummel expressed another concern about the amount of litter that is being left at the locations where the parties are being held.

“I wish there was a way to have the kids and their parents do some public service and pick up the trash at some of the places where the parties have been. I could very easily keep kids and adults busy with large plastic garbage bags cleaning up the mess,” he said.

All of the law enforcement officers talked about the difficulty they have when they go onto a scene where there has been a fatality related to alcohol. Several of them expressed how they would never forget seeing it and the fear that the fatility may be someone they knew. There was also discussion of how between 95-99 percent of the domestic violence calls they respond to involve the use of alcohol and/or other drugs and the impact it has on the children.