HELENA – Members of Montana’s law enforcement community and others told Sen. Steve Daines on Thursday they were understaffed and underfunded in the growing war on drugs.
“Meth is out of control here in the state,” said Stacy Zinn-Brittain, a regional agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Daines, R-Mont., had assembled a roundtable discussion at his Helena office that included representatives from 10 federal, state and county departments in the wake of a bill that awarded a $946,981 Anti-Meth Grant to the Montana Highway Patrol, and the next steps forward to cleaning Montana communities of meth and other drugs.
Daines said there are an increasing number of news reports of more violent crimes that are tied to drugs.
“It’s going to take a lot of work, cooperation and coordination of everyone in this room” to fix the problem, he said.