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Seattle police release narcotics trend numbers that show methamphetamine skyrocketing

Seattle police just released alarming new numbers on drug trends and while heroin still accounts for the majority of possession reports it is not the fastest growing drug of choice.

Methamphetamine use has skyrocketed 60 percent in just a year.

Last November KIRO 7 did an in-depth investigation into Seattle’s growing methamphetamine problem; we talked to users, the experts studying them, and now we’ve waded through the statistics.

Seattle Police Department narcotics trend numbers show meth possession records—once 49 in 2009—rose to 293 in 2017 and more than doubled between 2015 and 2017.

“We’ve seen pipes go up—we’ve also seen an increase in stimulant use in general. And the whole West Coast has seen that increase,” explained Shilo Jama, who says he’s been trying get that message out for years.

Jama is a drug user and runs the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance, a non-profit that supports drug users by ensuring they have the cleanest supplies and safest usage methods.

“We have everything from injection equipment to smoking equipment to snorting equipment,” Jama told us.

He’s given out as many as 40,000 meth pipes in the last few years as he’s watched the drug increase in popularity and he’s worried we’re on the brink of the next epidemic—a meth epidemic.

"What's our plan for stimulant users, how are we going to support them, where's their treatment plan?
I'm hearing it fall on deaf ears and in 20 or even five years we're going to sit down and talk about the meth crisis that we could have stopped and could have prevented but we chose not to," Jama concluded.

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