E-Mail This Article to a Friend Drug follies Meth labs in Southie! Junkies on the Common! Once again, the media and the pols chase the wrong stories on substance abuse BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

A minor political and media frenzy erupted this month in response to news reports — probably untrue, it turns out — that a methamphetamine lab had been found in the South Boston apartment where an MIT grad student had died during a kinky sex romp. The daily papers and TV news flogged the shocking arrival of deadly meth in Boston. Southie’s state rep Brian Wallace staked out Congress Street in front of the suspect building, placing himself before every camera and reporter to talk about meth. One day after the discovery, the state Senate passed a long-dormant bill making it harder to obtain a key ingredient for meth-making.

It was a perfect example of how Boston repeatedly overreacts to peripheral or even imagined drug problems while ignoring the widespread ones.

You may recall similar hoopla back in August, when a Boston Herald photographer caught a man injecting heroin on Boston Common, and the man subsequently died. Or the stories some time ago about OxyContin robberies at area pharmacies. Or Mayor Thomas Menino’s tale last year about heroin dealers luring youngsters by printing cartoon characters on drug bags.

All of these stories prompted a great hue and cry, and promises of action. They were all then quickly forgotten, even as the local substance-abuse problem worsened: overdoses of heroin and other opiates caused 574 deaths in the state in 2003, topping motor-vehicle deaths for the first time. And state officials believe the problem is only getting worse (numbers for 2004 are still being compiled).

So it was no surprise that, after several days in the spotlight, the Southie-meth-lab story disappeared — particularly after the Boston Globe pretty well debunked the meth angle last Thursday. The only mention since then was a Boston Herald editorial last Friday saying that the "possible" Southie meth lab demonstrated the need for state action to curtail use of that drug.

Nobody should doubt the intensely destructive nature of crystal meth, which has gained a foothold in the area, particularly among gay men. (See "All methed up," News and Features, December 17, 2004.) But health officials here have done an admirable job spreading information and services, and have thus far kept meth usage from exploding into a large-scale problem. The most recent Office of National Drug Control Policy profile of Massachusetts calls meth "a low threat to Massachusetts." And labs certainly aren’t the problem here — the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has found only a handful of meth labs in the state ever, mostly tabletop boxes to make small amounts for personal use. (The DEA has found 16 labs in its entire Northeast territory this year, up from 12 in 2004.)

Meth, while enjoying its status as drug abuse’s latest cover boy, isn’t as much of a problem in Massachusetts as heroin, OxyContin, and crack cocaine.

Just as attention to the meth-lab story died down, the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum (MHPF) released a paper detailing the actual scope of the drug problem in Massachusetts, and the shameful ongoing failure of response. One out of every 10 people age 12 or older in the state abuse or are dependent on alcohol or other drugs, it says. And even using a very restrictive and conservative estimate, 39,000 people need substance-abuse treatment but are not getting it.

The MHPF’s issue outlined the high cost to the state of the current course of inaction. A calculation of a different sort appeared on a large canvas sheet at a vigil in Lynn this August. That’s where people wrote the names of dozens of loved ones who had died of heroin-related causes. No politicians attended that event, no TV cameras recorded it, and no legislation followed it.