Are we losing the war on drugs in the Valley?

During the years that I lived in Kitsap County, most of my time was in and around the small town of Port Orchard. I’ve written about it before and how remarkable the similarities are between Port Orchard and Wasilla regarding small towns that suddenly exploded in size. Another similarity was the rural community of Olalla, located just outside Port Orchard, and our own Butte.

On first glance, Olalla was a great place to live if you were into a more rural life. Lots of trees, houses often nestled far off the road and the only spot you could call “downtown Olalla” consisted of a small store, gas station and post office. But it was only a few miles to downtown Port Orchard so you really weren’t too far off the beaten path. I recall riding my bike all over Olalla, standing on the Olalla bridge watching people fish, exploring the trails that ran through the woods and years later, driving around the various country roads to visit friends or buy some old car. Sounds pretty pleasant, no?

But as the years went by, a dark side to Olalla began to emerge. The privacy all those trees provided presented the perfect opportunity for cooking meth. Oh sure, it was well known that Olalla had its fair share of dope heads. People could smoke the stuff on their property without worrying about being seen and grow it in their garages and shops away from the prying eyes of the sheriff’s deputies. But for those same reasons, now the meth cookers were popping up out there. It was only about 30 miles from Olalla to Tacoma, so Olalla became one of the areas supplying the stuff to the big city. And, of course, more problems with meth started popping up in little old Port Orchard and the other cities on the Kitsap Peninsula. It was sad to see what was happening to my sleepy little community.

Like I had done a few times over the years, I left Washington for Alaska for a few years. But when I returned to Kitsap County in 1991, I quickly noticed a drastic change. Olalla was cleaned up. Property value was increasing, larger homes were being built and the drug problem, while not entirely wiped out, was certainly a lot smaller than it used to be.

Why? What had happened? Tacoma wasn’t any smaller and Lord knows wasn’t lacking a demand for drugs. Turns out the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department had decided the problem had gone far enough and took action. A top-notch task force was created, new training was implemented and several other steps were taken to enable the police to start running the dealers and cookers out. The paper was full of stories of the sheriff descending on properties, homes, trailers, etc. and making huge busts. The jail was packed, stiff sentences were handed out and the message was clear; if you’re cooking meth in Kitsap County, you can count on getting caught and going to prison.

I can recall a specific incident where I was driving through Olalla and a truck towing a filthy, dilapidated, rickety old camp trailer passed me going the other direction. “Looks like one of those stories I read about where they use camp trailers to make meth,” I thought to myself. After I finished my business in town and turned around to head home, I came across that same truck and trailer again only a few miles from where I had seen it. But this time it was stopped in the middle of the road with dozens of police cars and other law enforcement vehicles swarmed all over it and two men cuffed and stuffed in the back of a police cruiser.

“Wow,” I thought. “No sooner do I see one and the deputies are all over it. It must be true, the sheriff must really be putting the squeeze on these losers.”

It was nice to see a place where the law was winning and the improvements were easily recognized.

So that brings me to the Butte and Mat-Su Valley. When we moved back to Alaska I had déjà vu due to the drug problem coming out of the Butte and, to be fair, many other places around here. Local and Anchorage demand has definitely taken its toll. So my question is when do I get to see the crackdown by our local law enforcement? Am I missing something, or does it look like we are still dealing with the issue reactively instead of taking the initiative and taking the fight to the drug manufacturers and distributors? The list of drug-related crimes in the paper seems to get longer and longer every week. Seems to me if the number is getting bigger, we’re losing the battle.

Is it lax law enforcement to blame? Is there an attitude out here in the Valley wherein many of us just shrug our shoulders and figure “no big deal?” Are our judges not handing out stiff enough sentences to offer a true deterrent? Is it a combination of all these things (and more)?

Whatever it is, I hope we get a handle on it soon. As a parent, I’m becoming more and more concerned.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.