By ROB MCKENNA

Washignton State Attorney General

Pia Marshall awoke to the familiar sound of her son’s voice calling out from his nearby bedroom.

Trudging down the hallway on a pre-dawn morning last March, Pia fetched her 6-year-old and guided him toward the bathroom. Passing a window, the Redmond mom of three caught the unmistakable sight of a man creeping up her driveway.

“Call the police!” Pia hollered repeatedly, instinctively pulling her son toward her.

But as Scott Marshall awoke and grabbed a telephone, the ski cap and sweatshirt-wearing stranger approached instead of retreating. To her horror, Pia saw the intruder’s silhouette through the front door’s frosted windows. He jostled the handle, attempting to enter the house.

Within moments the Redmond police had arrived, along with a neighbor whose alarm and barking dog had been set off by the same intruder.

The police informed Pia that it had taken three officers to subdue the methamphetamine-drugged burglar. In fact, the police theorized, the man could have come from a suspected meth lab just a half-mile away.

Pia’s story offers a sober reminder that methamphetamine is a drug that knows no socioeconomic or geographic boundaries. It can’t be dismissed as a problem that impacts “someone else’s neighborhood” or is relegated to seedy, back alleys.

Four years ago I promised to address the growth of meth addiction and its associated crimes, from burglary to identity theft.

I assembled a task force of police, prosecutors, treatment providers, and experts—not to endlessly study the problem (as happens too often in government) but to find solutions. At the same time I launched a continuing project to personally speak with thousands of students throughout the state about the risks of trying meth even once.

“We then wrote, and the Legislature unanimously passed, laws that have aggressively checked and reversed the spread of meth. We channeled millions of dollars annually into the investigation of drug labs, the prosecution of traffickers, and the treatment of the addicts who would accept it.

We also restricted the sale of the chemicals used to make meth—a fact you’ve no doubt noticed when purchasing pseudoephedrine (a key meth ingredient) at your local drug or grocery store. This over-the-counter drug is now under lock and key–a small inconvenience that pays a big public safety dividend.

As a result of these actions, police report that meth labs and associated toxic dumpsites are down from nearly 1,400 incidents in 2004 to fewer than 25 so far this year. The price of meth has more than doubled and its purity is down by over half – twice the price for half the potency, on average.

I’m proud of the progress my office, and our state, have made in fighting meth. But more remains to be done. Meth is still trafficked into our state from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.

And as we’ve turned the corner on meth addiction, we’ve seen surging prescription drug abuse and related deaths. That’s why I’ve directed $200,000 from a settlement my office reached with the makers of OxyContin toward two statewide youth prevention summits aimed at combating this new, deadly challenge. My office’s consumer protection work is also funding a statewide prescription drug-monitoring program, to stop abusers from hitting multiple pharmacies to fill multiple prescriptions.

Working together, we’ll continue to make the state of Washington a safer place for our families.