I chose the following articles for the “Best of Summer ‘06” edition because they perplexed and scared me.  How could such an expansive cowboy state like Montana be plagued by a major methamphetamine problem? Wasn't that a city issue? Apparently not. As I dug deeper into the story I was intrigued to find that Montana spaciousness and its highly vulnerable and very curious inhabitants made perfect targets for meth dealers. I was fortunate enough to talk with Montana's commissioner days before he retired, so he didn't mince words when it came to this sticky issue and who was to blame. If it wasn't for the genuine concern and creativity of a local millionaire, Montana could still be in the condition it was not so long ago. Fortunately, this entrepreneur mightily changed things around. If only every state could be so lucky as to have such a philanthropist.

I have always kept me eye on the stories about the avian flu and other strange sicknesses that seem to be crippling parts of our world. Every day I was relieved to see that this problem hadn't yet hit my backyard. As a result, I worried less and less about any of this becoming a worldwide pandemic. That is until the FLDOC contacted me about the “just in case.” What I learned from them was a startling lesson that I believe our country just hasn't wanted to and felt the need to learn–namely just because something bad happens somewhere else doesn't mean it won't happen here.  The destruction of the Indonesian typhoons seem too far away, until Katrina and Rita slammed our southern coast.  Extemist violence that rocks an entire country seems insignificant, that is until its wave crushes two towers and kills thousands of our own. I only hope that those in power have learned from these examples and can use their influence to help the corrections industry and the nation as a whole prepare for what may come next.

Jim Montalto, News Editor

   
The next pandemic: Are we really prepared?
Published: 08/14/2006


There was a time when Point MacKenzie Correctional Farm superintendent Joe Schmidt would look upon the wide blue sky that soars above his 120-offender minimum security facility and be at peace. After all, like most transition programs, PMCF does good work. It helps AKDOC inmates return to their community by providing vital skills through industrial, agricultural, and technological enterprises. The work on the 100-plus acre farm, which includes cultivating 45 acres of potatoes and 12 acres of vegetables, feeds members of Schmidt's facility as well as others across Alaska. So do the 3,700 chickens and turkeys that live on the same grounds.

Lately, this is what bothers him about that tranquil sky. As another change of season approaches this might be the year it fills with a highly predictable yet unstable and, for now, unstoppable force that could wipe out his flocks, and worse, an entire Anchorage population that lives just 43 miles south of his facility.

About 4,000 miles southeast of PMCF, in Tallahassee, FL, Scott McPherson is troubled by the same ideas, but his worries are of a broader scale that spans the United States.

“It's not about if it will happen. It's about when,” he says.

McPherson's job at the Florida DOC is two-fold. He serves as its chief information officer and heads its pandemic task force. He is well-versed in preparing for disasters – he ran the statewide Y2K project for Jeb Bush in 1999 – so he knows a thing or two about proper preparation procedures or in many facilities' cases the lack thereof.

“We've got a duty to prepare for the probability of a pandemic. What the public health folks are telling us is the best candidate for the next pandemic is A/H5N1. That's the bird flu or the avian flu,” he explains.

The “A” defines the type of influenza virus. In this case, the A virus causes avian influenza, which is hosted by birds but may infect several species of mammals. The H5 and N1 define the strain's composition. Until recently, H5/N1 was transmitted from migratory birds to other fowl. In the past nine years, though, there have been cases where humans have contracted avian flu. In 1997, six of the 18 people in Hong Kong that contracted the flu died, and 1.4 million birds were destroyed as a result. In 2003, 125 human cases were discovered in Asia, with 64 fatalities. Just a year ago, Russia, Turkey and Romania have all reported cases of H5/N1.

But recent evidence suggests a more startling statistic. The World Health Organization has said that while humans initially caught avian flu strictly from birds, it found that human to human transmission has occurred.

“So, now we've seen that a human caught the avian flu from a bird, but then transmitted it to another human, who then transmitted it to someone else,” McPherson explains. “We're seeing people catch the bird flu when people shouldn't be catching the flu at all. What worries health experts now is that if someone gets this flu on top of the normal flu that goes around during the flu season, more people will catch both.”

This is why H5/N1virus could slowly become a pandemic, first for poultry the world over and soon enough for humans. Avian flu has not yet hit North and South America, but McPherson thinks its arrival is imminent. Once that happens, there is great risk that migratory birds using North American flight patterns would infect our country's poultry.

“And as a nation we're behind in preparing for this. Corrections may actually be slightly ahead of other agencies, or at least as ready as law enforcement agencies are. As we've seen now for other natural disasters what the government can do to help us is limited. We need to prepare ourselves by ourselves for this,” he says.

So, Schmidt watches the skies and thinks about the swans, geese, and sandhill cranes and hundreds of thousands of other migratory birds that will soon fly above his facility and fields, and poultry.

He feels prepared, though, for what may come. He's well aware of the impact one sick bird could have on the 600 poultry the PMCF processes a month to feed inmates and practitioners. So, when he saw the wild birds that left from Russia and Asia to settle into his barley fields in early spring, he decided to call his veterinarian. He needed to know now what his inmates and staff had to do if they ever found one or more dead birds.

“The state vet came out to train our safety officers and showed them how to perform a group of early detection tests. We also talked to the inmates about finding dead birds and telling us what they see. If we find three or more dead wild birds, we're to contact the vet. If early detection tests turn positive they'll get sent out of state for more testing. Then there's a possibility the Feds would come in and wipe out our flock,” Schmidt explains. “

"We haven't found anything, yet,” he says hesitantly.

“If you're a chicken you're scared,” McPherson adds. “Migratory birds with H5/N1 evacuate it through their bowels. If this happens where domestic poultry lives, they'll get it. No doubt, migratory wild fowl are pushing this disease along. Eventually we're going to have an outbreak of bird flu among poultry in the US.”

Poultry processing manufacturers, like industry giant Tyson, which controls almost 27 percent of U.S. poultry sales – one out of every four pounds of chicken, beef and pork consumed in the U.S. is a Tyson product - share McPherson's sentiment. In fact, vehicles must first be sprayed with disinfectants before entering any Tyson site.

Schmidt doesn't see the need for that extreme just yet but he has instituted health procedures to curb the risk of infection.

“We broke up the birds and now keep them in separate rooms with solid walls between them. If we did have an infection, we could separate the flock and try to keep the healthy ones if protocol would allow that,” he explains.

The vet brought safety gear like gloves and goggles to use when handling the birds. Schmidt introduced a bleach mat and towel so inmates and officials can wipe their feet to keep fecal matter out of the facility and other bird pens.

“We put the birds in our greenhouses during the migratory periods of the winter and summer. It was wonderful protection, but it was a bit too warm. Humidity and chickens don't do so well together,” he explains, “so we'll probably keep all the birds in our barns instead and install heaters for them in the winter. The turkeys we also kept inside a month longer than we usually do.”

Any corrections facility that has an agriculture program should already be working with their state and federal agriculture departments. Facilities need to know how to protect their stock, and must immediately adopt and rehearse disinfectant procedures. This includes monitoring daily the health of their flocks.

“All it takes is one dead bird to infect poultry and all heck could break loose in our country,” says McPherson. “It's at that point we're going to see runs on masks and hand sanitizer. By then, it might be too late or too tough to get gloves and gowns, and tools needed to manage the pandemic. Demand could make those items cost a lot more than they do today too.”

Institutions should ensure they have at least a four month's supply of the proper gowns, gloves and masks. They should also have additional water and food supplies. Practitioners should find inmates with health care experience, those who can be nurse assistants, the ones who have performed battlefield triage.

“We feel very strongly that corrections agencies need to get in touch with their state health departments today and find out where they stand for anti-virals and vaccines,” McPherson stresses. “The federal plan is to ship anti-virals to doctors and nurses, EMTs, firemen, policemen, and other law enforcement, and then start treating the general population. What we're seeing is that corrections is frequently not taken into account for drug rationing.”

Add to this, society's standard practice of “just-in-time” ordering, and those who wait could find themselves short of vital supplies. States and counties are looking to supply their police and sheriff's offices, but this could lead to a deadly assumption that corrections will be cared for somewhere else.

“Face to face discussions with the state health department will be the only way to properly plan for this and ensure that corrections is covered,” adds McPherson.

Earlier last month, he recently met with health officials to decipher what his facility will get, including additional funds and Tamiflu, which contains oseltamivir phosphate, a drug that that has been known to help prevent certain types of flu.

McPherson says officials need to consider how a facility-wide illness would impact manpower. If about 30 to 40 percent of COs cannot or will not show for work to care for themselves or sick family members, who will care for the inmates? Legal implications could also follow. Will inmates sue for the right to get anti-viral medications?

Questions like these may not have steadfast answers, but addressing them as a pandemic hits won't solve any problems either.

“No one wants to say that there will be a pandemic, but we can't avoid its possibility, and we definitely need to prepare for it,” he adds.

The good news, if there can be any about social catastrophes, is that pandemic preparedness can be leveraged against any disaster. The same procedures and processes set in place now will only help in the event of other possible disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes and bioterrorism. There is never a downside to the planning effort.

Bottom Line: Disaster preparedness must be implemented, especially when potential pandemics, like the avian flu, have already been proven to be spreading steadily around the world.

Email Scott McPherson or call him at 850.410.4740 to talk with him about his strategies and presentation on pandemic preparedness.

Other resources: PandemicFlu.gov offers updates and explanations for avian and pandemic flu information. JM

Marketing solution to a meth problem
Published: 06/05/2006

Montana teams up with the private sector for a statewide anti-drug campaign

What do you do when a major federal report lists your state as having the highest prison population increase in the country, and then state officials blame it on a methamphetamine abuse problem run rampant? If you're Department of Montana Corrections Director Bill Slaughter, who retired shortly after speaking to Corrections.com, you continue with business as usual.

Information about his DOC, which recorded a 7.9 percent prison population increase in a released last week, did not surprise him, neither did Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg's statement that 85 percent of the state's female prisoners are incarcerated because of meth-related offenses. That figure recently has been decreased to about 53 percent by Montana Attorney General, Mike McGrath. Meth abuse is responsible for about 35 percent of the male offender population.

Slaughter says for the past seven to eight years his officers have predicted that meth abuse would be the state's next major drug problem.

“Meth is cheap and highly addictive, but it smells horrible when made, so you need to be away from people, which gives it a history of being a rural drug” Slaughter explains. “Because meth is more of a rural problem, though, it has not gotten much attention.”

Unfortunately, it has caught the eye of  a major state population groups. Meth distributors are targeting the state's seven Native American reservations because of their remote location. As a result, the MTDOC is struggling to manage the increasing number of Native American offenders.

The high percentage of female meth offenders is puzzling too, but Slaughter says they have had a number of chances to right their situation before ending up in prison. Montana's prison system differs from other states in that judges can initially decide whether an offender goes directly to jail or is ordered into the MTDOC's custody. In fact, approximately 12,000 offenders are under its supervision, with about 75 percent of them in community corrections programs.  Approximately 68 percent of convicted offenders do not spend time in prison.

“If they come into our custody, we can get offenders into rehabilitation programs. So, they have a number of chances to improve,” Slaughter explains. “But many of the male and female offenders seem to work hard at getting themselves into prison.

Probation officers work with them, but they're out of control. They've failed at the numerous opportunities they were given to get their lives back in order.”

Peg Shea, Executive Director of the Montana Meth Project, believes the meth problem reaches deeper than that. 

“There are a couple of different issues going on. We're seeing an addiction rate that's impacting individuals and their criminal behavior, but we don't have a lot of treatments. A judge would order treatment and the offender would agree to it, but then he or she would have to wait six, eight, or nine months for treatment. In the meantime they continue to do the meth which would typically lead to a crime, so back in prison they go,” says Shea.

Another problem is the country's overall inability to stop the flow of meth coming from other countries. Only 20 percent of the drug is produced in Montana. Slaughter says the other 80 percent comes from Mexico and Canada.

“We're aware that meth labs find their way from Canada,” he adds, “The Feds know it too. It's no secret.”

Inadequate state funding for treatment programs, dwindling industry, and the fact that Montana ranks near the bottom of nationwide median incomes has not helped matters much either.

“We struggle with budget issues and the lack of real leadership to finance treatments. This translates to an increase in meth use and related crime, and then our prison growth rate is one of the highest. People aren't committing more crime, they're not getting the resources related to their addiction,” Shea adds. 

Thanks to area leaders like, millionaire Seibel Systems founder Tom Seibel, more resources are becoming available and Montana

residents are hearing about it loud and clear.  To date Seibel, through his foundation, has invested more than $5.5 million into building and promoting Shea's program, which is the only prevention-focused organization in the state.

“The Meth Project is a tremendous boost. Seibel did a lot of research to figure out how to get people to notice this campaign,” says Slaughter.

“He decided to make an investment in his state and use his connections to take care of this problem on the front end,” Shea adds. “He's taking the meth problem and applying business solutions to it and using a consumer marketing approach to  get the word out.”

Montana's isolation made it a perfect experiment area for Seibel to examine how private sector solutions affected public problems. He researched the time of day that would provide the most impact for his campaigns, and conducted surveys to find out which audiences most needed to hear the anti-meth messages.

“We polled teens and young adults and found that they didn't understand much about meth. They told us it was easily accessible, and we discovered that about 25 percent of  the kids had been offered the drug,” Shea says. “So we knew it was widely available. There was this perception too that there might be some benefit to using it, and that its risks weren't so bad.”

The Meth Project knew that it had to target fist-time users to reduce meth use. That meant getting its message to the most vulnerable groups; children ages 12 to  17, and young adults in their early 20's. If it could impact this group, and raise the dialogue among this population, it had a chance at battling the state's meth problem.

As a result, Seibel and Shea created a hard-hitting anti-meth campaign that spoke to this population. It included is a television and Internet ad campaign and highway billboards.

“This past September our organization became the largest advertising entity in Montana. We wanted kids to see our anti-meth message at least three times a week through this campaign,” says Shea.

The ads depict healthy-looking kids seemingly interested in using meth “just once” only to  become addicts themselves who are consumed with body sores and plunged into a life of crime.  The campaign was startling enough to make its impact.

“We hit the state like a tornado. I couldn't go anywhere without being approached about the ads,” Shea adds. “While it the attention was overwhelming, the good news was we made the intended impact. Now, we have a little revolution going on here.”

Shea conducted a survey in July 2005, which proved that the anti-meth campaign was effective. She will perform another survey this summer.

She says the Meth Project is attempting to break the drug, and ultimately, the prison cycle meth-users fall into. 

“We're not going to be able to build enough prisons to keep up with the population increase, and treatment is expensive and takes time. But we can encourage prevention by raising awareness. By talking to kids and changing their attitudes, we can change their behavior,” she says. 

The MTDOC is doing their part in handling the drug problem by requesting two new meth treatment centers. Slaughter says a recently-passed law allows second-offense meth offenders to be sentenced to treatment centers instead of prisons.

Slaughter believes these new strategies will help, but admits the real solution to the state's meth problem is increasing the number of programs like the Meth Project.

“By the time these folks get to us, they're highly addicted, and then they fail at existing programs. Programs on the front end, however, will turn this problem around. We're going to do what we can, but the answer is the diversionary programs that can help offenders before they reach our doors,” he says. 

Shea agrees, which is why she perseveres in promoting her organization's anti-meth message. She is encouraged by the momentum the Meth Project has seen in its two-year existence. She knows the more people talk about her campaign, the more they talk about avoiding the drug, which should prevent them from joining the state's prison population. JM