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A Madness Called Meth: To Our Readers

METH THREATENS FABRIC OF CENTRAL VALLEY LIFE

To Our Readers:

In your copy of today's Bee, you will find an 18-page special report, "A
Madness Called Meth."

This report is the result of an unprecedented joint effort by journalists
at The McClatchy Company's California newspapers in Fresno, Sacramento and
Modesto. The project was undertaken by these newspapers because the Central
Valley has been, and continues to be, more adversely affected by the
methamphetamine menace than any region in the nation.

For the past six months, a team of Bee reporters, photographers, artists
and editors investigated how the Valley, known for its agricultural
abundance, has become a "source nation" as well for meth, not only
producing (and consuming) the drug in mass quantities, but supplying it to
other parts of the country.

Law enforcement officials estimate that as much as 80% of all meth in the
United States comes from California. Much of that meth is made in the
17-county Central Valley from Redding to Bakersfield. More than 95% of all
large meth labs busted nationally during 1999 were in this state.

This report, however, is more than a look at the manufacture of what
federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey calls "the worst drug that has ever hit
America." It also intimately details the human suffering associated with
the nation's fastest growing illegal drug.

Seduced by meth's low cost and lingering highs, users of the ferociously
addictive drug face the prospect of premature aging, rotting teeth and,
eventually, heart damage and psychoses.

Still, it is the Valley's children who may be most victimized by meth. Many
have been found at potentially explosive meth cooking sites, exposed to
lethal chemicals and fumes. Thousands of others have meth-using parents who
neglect, abuse and, sometimes, kill them. And, if their parents are
arrested, these children often wind up in foster care, many permanently.

But the nightmare doesn't end there. The toxic and hazardous chemicals used
in making meth have contaminated property, soil and water throughout the
Central Valley, and the potential costs to clean up lab-waste dump sites --
some 400 were found in the state in 1999 alone -- are staggering. The
problem is further exacerbated by the fact California does not regulate
such clean-up, leaving it instead for counties to set varying, if any,
standards.

The story of meth is both troubling and infuriating, and you may find some
of the material in this special report offensive. We tell this story in all
of its disturbing detail, however, because we believe that if we are ever
to solve this problem, we must first fully understand it.