TREATMENT TO BATTLE METH HABIT AVAILABLE

Methamphetamine has also moved into third place at the Rocky Boy Chemical
Dependency Center.

Lenore Myers, chemical dependency administrator at the Center, said meth
users placed third behind marijuana and alcohol users in 1998 and 1999.

Rocky Boy Chemical Dependency Center is a out-patient counseling service
that uses the expertise of medical, psychological, and social professionals
to help people with chemical dependencies recover from their illness.

In-patient services for those requiring medical attention as they go
through the most acute phase of withdrawal is available at most major
hospitals in Montana including Northern Montana Hospital. But no long-term
in-patient care is available locally.

Patients requiring in-patient treatment must be sent to one of the
treatment centers in Butte, Billings, Helena, or Benefis in Great Falls.

Myers said she has no statistics on the number of people that pass through
the Rocky Boy's program, but she does say 30 days of in-patient care is not
enough to cure the problem of methamphetamine addiction.

She also knows she can not expect first time visitors to her program to be
successful and with meth addiction it might take several tries and years of
work to successfully treat the desire

Myers said with any tissue addiction, things can get worse before they get
better.

In Havre, out-patient counseling is provided by TLC Recovery — an eight
county program that contracts with Hill County and with the Department of
Health and Human Services Addictive and Mental Disorders Division to
provide the service.

Carol Richard, a Fort Benton resident who started the program 20 years ago
in Toole, Liberty, and Chouteau Counties, added Hill County to her list
about a year ago, she said. Since that time she has become intimately
familiar with methamphetamine use in the Havre area.

"It was almost like when I drove up the highway 75 miles, I was in a
different world," she said, about the introduction of meth to the Havre
area. "... I started a year ago seeing all these people who were on
methamphetamine."

Richard said she sees a lot of young people, teenagers, and also a lot of
women with children.

Fully 20 percent of the clients currently using TLC are being treated for
methamphetamine use, she said.

She describes methamphetamine as a rich persons chemical in that it
destroys the home, good jobs, and the family so quickly. She also notes
that there is a lot of aggression involved with the use of the drug and
recovery takes longer with meth then with other drugs.

TLC Recovery refuses service to no one, Richard said. But there is a fee
based on a sliding scale determined by the patients ability to pay. She
adds that in some cases insurance will pick up the cost of treatment, but
acknowledges that many victims of substance abuse have no, or very little
income much less medical insurance.

Dirk Gibson, superintendent of the Benefis West Drug Dependency Treatment
Program in Great Falls, said about 200 people, both in-patient and
out-patient and in all levels of recovery, pass through his doors daily. He
believes the Benefis program is the largest day treatment program in Montana.

Gibson acknowledges that meth has become the third most common drug
addiction problem in Montana and also acknowledges that meth requires a
longer withdrawal time than any other type of addictive substance except
for addiction to prescription drugs.

"It requires five to seven days to get through the immediate symptoms,"
Gibson said. "but it does not normally require detox."

He said the problem with meth is that the patient is so uncomfortable as
they start to withdrawal that they can't deal with the cravings.

"The main reason for in-patient care is to keep them away from the drug,"
he said. "Psychologically it is a very scary drug that can produce psychosis."

There is no medications available to help someone going through withdrawal
from meth, he said, but occasionally anti-depressants have been used.

"It's a powerful and an addictive substance that affects their entire
system," Gibson said.

A related observation with methamphetamine is that for many users it is
their first encounter with IV drug use.

"That becomes scary because of the risk of hepatitis or HIV infection,"
Gibson said.

Roland Mena, director of the Addictive and Mental Disorders Division of the
Montana Department of Health and Human Services, agrees that meth has moved
into the top three drugs of choice placing additional stress on an already
stressed public health system.

Longer periods of treatment, the frequency of relapse, and even Montana's
rural population and great distances between population centers are large
factors in providing care.