BILLBOARD: Be offended by meth

Do you know what offends me? Ignorance; ignorance and people like Tim Gardener and Tom Latham who would have us all wallowing in it out of a desperate desire to escape the truth. While more than 47,000 teens in Idaho and more than 12,000,000 teens in the United States have reported using meth at least once, the good people of Kootenai County are bothered by a picture of a teenage girl in something less revealing than a swimsuit and the “morality” associated with situational prostitution.

So, Tim and Tom, and whoever else has been offended by Project Meth’s latest billboard, would you prefer an ad warning the public that teens engaging in meth use might miss an occasional Sunday in church or, horror of horrors!, talk back to their parents? How about a billboard linking meth use to the dangers of liberalism? Would that be more in keeping with the public morality, do you think?

To everyone else: What kind of self-righteous dogma do you think it takes to make someone think that their discomfort is more important than the lives of 12 million people? Open your eyes and take a look around you. Meth is a real problem, and it’s very common (as many as 50 percent of cases, according to the NIH) for young women to resort to selling their bodies in order to feed their drug habit. That’s the truth of the matter.

Project Meth has had a huge impact on meth abuse, primarily because they are not afraid to tell the truth, regardless of how horrifying or offensive it might be. Remember—the truth will set you free.

And one more thing; any “public morality” that is more concerned with the rather delicate sensibilities of a few people than the lives of its youth is no morality at all, and I will have no part in it.

KIRSTEN BRANDT

Coeur d’Alene