CRACKDOWN ON METH HAS MADE COCAINE CHEAPER

Nearly anyone these days can recognize the hollowed-out features,
skinny limbs and pockmarked skin that characterize someone hooked on
methamphetamine, thanks in part to intensive local education campaigns.

It's precisely that education, coupled with a crackdown on meth users
and dealers that has helped get pounds of meth off local streets, law
enforcement officials report.

Yet, like any supply-and-demand equation, that is causing a decrease
in the amount of the locally available drug, lowering its quality and
making it more expensive. That shift has tipped the scales in the
drug-buying business, now making cocaine relatively less expensive and
more likely to be discovered by undercover officers in drug raids,
according to spokeswoman Karen Flowers, resident agent in charge of
the Drug Enforcement Administration in Grand Junction.

"It's cheaper to buy cocaine," she said. "If you have an addiction,
you want to do what it takes to stimulate that high. Cocaine is the
closest thing (next to meth) that's readily available."

Current rates for a gram of meth, which is enough of the drug to last
some addicts for about a week, is about $150 to $180, depending on the
quality, said Lt. David Holdren of the Mesa County Sheriff's
Department. Cocaine, in contrast, is being sold for about $120 a gram,
he said.

From January to June of this year, officers with the Western Colorado
Drug Task Force have confiscated 19 pounds of cocaine and 27 1/2
pounds of meth.

But a relative break on the price of cocaine poses another problem for
law enforcement, Flowers said.

Unlike meth, cocaine is viewed as a stylish drug, more commonly
associated with a glamorous lifestyle. Cocaine use is not accompanied
by many of the trademark signs of deterioration of a user's physique,
and users aren't as likely to experience the paranoia and sometimes
the violence that accompanies meth use, Flowers said.

"It's not looked at as a hard drug or a dangerous drug," she said.
"When you think about someone who uses cocaine, you see a professional
person. But cocaine is just as dangerous as methamphetamine, probably
in a different way."

On one hand, she said, it may be more difficult to combat cocaine use
because of a public perception it's a softer drug than meth. However,
cocaine users can overdose, and anyone who abuses drugs creates stress
and pain on family and friends, she said.

It's true, Flowers said, battling cocaine use may be safer from a
standpoint of public safety and officer safety. Cocaine users, unlike
meth users, are less likely to experience the dramatic mood swings
that make meth users combative and difficult to apprehend.

Lt. Holdren said he has arrested more people lately for cocaine
offenses, but meth remains popular among drug users because a meth
high lasts up to 72 hours, much longer than a cocaine high.

"Years back, the vast majority of arrests were meth," he said. "Now
we're seeing a comeback with cocaine. We knew it was still there. With
the drug culture, when one drug slows down, another pops up."

Officers recently conducted two raids where people were making crack
cocaine, one raid at a Grand Junction hotel room and another at a home
on Orchard Mesa. Palisade Police Chief Carroll Quarles said officers
last week arrested a man on suspicion of possessing a pipe that may
have contained crack, something that law enforcement there hasn't come
across in years.

"I'm hearing that crack is making a comeback," Quarles said. "We're
going to see an increase."

Crack, a drug popularized in the 1980s, is a street name for cocaine
hydrochloride that has been processed so it can be smoked. "Crack"
refers to the cracking sound the drug makes when heated and mixed with
ammonia or baking soda and water to remove the hydrochloride.

Dealers who traffic meth generally also offer users cocaine, heroin
and marijuana, Flowers said. Those drugs are largely being imported
from countries in Central and South America and from Southeast Asia,
she said.

Breaking down local drug rings hits dealers' pocketbooks, the most
effective way for law enforcement to stem the flow of drugs into the
community.

"Our goal is to always go up another level. Not only take out the
users, but see who's delivering internationally," Flowers said.

Law enforcement keeps cash, assets and drugs seized in raids. Raids
made by the Western Colorado Drug Task Force have netted enough cash
recently to purchase a $225,000 tactical armored vehicle to be used by
the agencies across the Western Slope in the event of large-scale
threats to public safety. Drug seizure funds are also used in the Mesa
County District Attorney's Office to fund witnesses' travel expenses,
training, weapons and support for the anti-drug group Mesa County Meth
Task Force.

"Budgets are so tight," Flowers said. "We can't go to the county
commissioners every time we need money. This gives us an extra source
of revenue."

More people may be opting to use cocaine over meth because they don't
want to display the outward signs of meth, such as nervousness, skin
sores and teeth grinding, Holdren added.

"I would say that cocaine has never gone away," Flowers said. "It kind
of ebbs and flows in its popularity."