Idaho meth ads set for January
KIMBERLY, Idaho – Despite being more than $1 million short of their goal, officials plan to launch a statewide ad campaign depicting the effects of methamphetamine use during the first week of January to coincide with Gov. Butch Otter’s Jan. 7 State of the State address.
Officials with the Idaho Meth Project plan ads filled with images of pale young faces riddled with sores, and graphic scenes of violence, car collisions and desperate teenage criminals.
Debbie Field, director of the Idaho Office of Drug Policy, announced the new timetable Wednesday, The Times-News of Twin Falls reported.
The Idaho Meth Project board made the decision to begin the ads, Field said Thursday. The Meth Project is a private, nonprofit organization operating under the auspices of the United Way of Treasure Valley.
Officials previously said the campaign, modeled after the Montana Meth Project, would not start until about $2.7 million was collected so the ads could run steadily without fear of being stopped due to lack of money.
So far, though, only about $1.4 million has been raised through private donations, Field said. That’s enough to pay for ads for about the first four and a half months of 2008.
She said that once the ads start, raising money should be easier.
She said she didn’t know whether Otter would mention the campaign in his address but noted, “The governor has been a leader in this.”
Field said meth has a 95 percent addiction rate, and that taxpayers pay $55 a day for each of the 3,331 male prisoners she said are in jail because of meth.
After the project started in Montana, the state moved from fifth in the nation in meth trafficking to 39th in one year.
Idaho is now ranked fifth.
“Meth has really brought our state to its knees,” Field said.
Megan Ronk, executive director of the Idaho Meth Project, said the group is lining up ad time and space in various outlets to begin the campaign. She said she was confident sufficient donations would come in to keep the ad campaign going once it started.