Kansas Bureau of Investigation gets $1 million grant to fight meth

Kansas’ fight against methamphetamine will be aided by a $1 million federal grant, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

The money will go to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to help fight meth trafficking. The money is part of nearly $42 million being spent by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services office to aid nationwide law enforcement agencies combat drugs.

“Methamphetamine trafficking and addiction have been driving forces behind many violent crimes in Kansas, often involving firearms,” U.S. Attorney for Kansas Stephen McAllister said in a news release. “And meth addiction has plagued too many Kansans, ruined lives, destroyed families, and required the expenditure of vast amounts of law enforcement and community resources.”

Previously, Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter said meth drives most of the violent and property crime in the county. He said 70% of the Sedgwick County Jail’s inmates have an addiction problem, with meth being the largest addiction.

“Again, methamphetamine is much different than cocaine and those types of things,” Easter said in October 2019. “It actually affects the brain which emulates mental illness. So we are seeing a boom in mental illness across this city and this county, which attributes to the jail population.”

Easter said the price of an ounce of meth today is one-fifth of what it was in 2011.

Since 1994, the COPS office has provided more than $14 billion in assistance to law enforcement agencies. The COPS office “awards grants to hire community policing professionals, develop and test innovative policing strategies, and provide training and technical assistance.”