METH LURKS EVERYWHERE

Don Keating's daily fight against methamphetamine begins at his front
door in the historic Warm Sands neighborhood of Palm Springs.

For three years, he has found remnants of the drug on his sidewalks
and streets, sometimes right in his front yard.

A hypodermic needle here. A prone addict in the midst of a
mind-numbing high there.

"I left my ex of 20 years because he got hooked on this stuff,"
Keating said. "It's horrible, and once it has a hold on you, it takes over."

No part of the Coachella Valley is immune to the growing meth problem.

Meth has been found in some of the best-heeled communities in the
region - from a middle-class neighborhood in Palm Desert to the tony
enclaves of Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells to one of the nicest
resorts in Palm Springs.

The availability is indicative of the region's changing role in the
nationwide scourge that is meth, police and drug enforcement experts say.

Gone are the days when meth cooks came to the valley to manufacture
their toxic concoctions in the seclusion of the desolate desert plains.

The Coachella Valley is now a major point for distribution of meth to
the rest of the state and the country, narcotics investigators say.

The effects can be seen and felt in several ways:

More crime, more money.

Recent federal statistics reveal that auto-theft rates in some parts
of the valley went up 73 percent over the previous year. Burglary
rates increased as much as 57 percent.

Local law enforcement authorities attribute much of the increase to
meth addicts who steal to pay for their next fix.

As the crime rate increases, so does the cost of insurance. Even if
you aren't a crime victim, living in an area that's considered high
risk means you'll pay more for insurance.

Over-extended public services.

In the first nine months of 2004, 74 children were rescued from meth
labs in Riverside County, officials say.

Desperate to find ways to comfort children found at meth labs, the
county has acquired four converted recreation vehicles to act as
shelters for these children while their parents or caregivers are
being arrested.

State and county social service agencies are flooded with children
whose parents are incapable of taking care of them because of meth.

Ultimately, taxpayers fund the care of these children. And as their
numbers grow, so does the need for money to support them.

Authorities say the manmade stimulant is cheap when compared to such
other drugs as cocaine or heroin. It gives the user a quick and intense high.

According to addiction experts, the initial rush experienced by its
users can equal 10 orgasms.

Smuggled into the valley Increased police pressure has forced many of
the major meth producers into Mexico, where drug enforcement laws are
less stringent.

As a result, the drug is now smuggled across the border into the
Coachella Valley.

In 2003, recognizing that they had a problem, federal and local
officials agreed to convert a locally run narcotics task force into
an arm of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. They based it in
Palm Springs.

"I can't begin to tell you what we know about this area," said Steve
Azzam, an assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Riverside
district office, which oversees the Coachella Valley.

This area, he said, is "a distribution hub. Once it's in the valley,
it can go anywhere. There's Highway 86. Highway 111. Interstate 10.
Anywhere," he said. "We've made a lot of significant takedowns, but
there is still much to do."

He said the unit works with both state and local investigators,
blending federal resources and tactics with the insights and
familiarity of the locals.

It's a significant move, officials said, considering the fiscal
belt-tightening going on in Washington, D.C. - not to mention the
increases locally and nationally in property crimes.

"Much of the crime that takes place in this area and in other parts
of the valley can be attributed to addicts looking for ways to pay
for meth," said Indio Police Chief Brad Ramos.

Addicts: All walks of life Experts consider the manmade drug the
great equalizer.

Rich. Poor. Black. White. Latino. Asian. Male. Female. Straight. Gay.

Meth does not discriminate.

Law enforcement and drug counselors agree, meth addicts come from
every walk of life, particularly in the Coachella Valley.

Keating is a community activist who continues to fight the drug's
influence in his Warm Sands neighborhood. He has learned that
sometimes things have to get really bad before they can improve.

At its worst, Keating said, Warm Sands was racked by petty thefts,
property damage and drug deals made out in the open - one man was
even beaten and mugged.

All the crime made older residents afraid to walk their dogs.

It was enough to make a person move - but Keating hasn't, and he said he won't.

He'd rather stay and fight.

"Why should I move? I'm tired of this," he said.

A year ago, he began talking with John Hanson, a retired architect,
who just moved to the neighborhood.

The two men compared notes and figured they'd take a stand.

Even the neighborhood's world-renowned, award-winning resorts, known
for their exclusivity and gay-friendly atmospheres, weren't immune to
the problem.

Keating and Hanson believed some of the dealing may have been done by
people employed at the hotels.

"You'd see the deals going on," Keating said. "They weren't ashamed,
or concerned, or hiding."

Both Keating and Hanson said they informed the owners of those
resorts, but only recently has anything been done.

"Something had to be done. Everyone in town knows about this area -
that it's drug-infested," said Hanson. "But that didn't stop me from
wanting to live here."

Hanson and Keating are founding members of the Warm Sands
Neighborhood Organization, a kind of neighborhood watch group focused
on decreasing crime in this area.

Hanson said he was attracted to the quaint architecture of the
neighborhood, which features single-story cottages tucked amid palm
trees and flowering shrubbery.

"I realized my neighborhood was going to be destroyed if I didn't do
something about it," he said.

Law enforcement agencies agreed and took action. In the past three
months, two meth busts have been made at one of the hotels in Warm
Sands, resulting in the arrests of three hotel workers. Meth was one
of the drugs confiscated.

But authorities already had been busy with meth-related crime in the valley.

In August at a Motel 6 on South Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs,
two people were stabbed after smoking meth with a stranger who then
attempted to rob them, according to police.

And later that same month in Palm Desert, sheriff's deputies arrested
three people for alleged possession of more than a half-pound of meth
with intent to sell. The drug was valued at $8,500.

The three were staying in a room at the Courtyard Marriott on Frank
Sinatra Drive.

In September, middle-class residents of the 77-800 block of Michigan
Drive in Palm Desert began their Labor Day weekend watching narcotics
investigators raid a neighbor's apartment where meth allegedly was being sold.

A month later, not far from an up-and-coming area of North Palm
Springs, where the homes are newly built and a golf course is under
construction, residents awoke to find their neighborhood inundated
with police cars, yellow crime scene tape and plastic-clad hazardous
materials workers removing toxic chemicals from a neighbor's house.

An active meth lab was discovered there.

Prevalence of meth grows Since 1998, nearly 100 clandestine labs have
been discovered in the valley.

Besides Palm Desert and Palm Springs, labs and other meth-related
activities have been uncovered in La Quinta, Rancho Mirage, Indio,
Bermuda Dunes, Cathedral City, Indian Wells and Desert Hot Springs,
according to law enforcement statistics.

Five years ago, a working meth lab was found inside a unit of the
then-Mecca Vineyards Apartments on Gemini Street in Indio.

That discovery triggered a lot of changes for the apartment complex,
which now participates in the Indio Police Department's Crime-free
Multi-housing program. That is a renter's version of the Neighborhood
Watch organizations that rely on citizens to watch out for crimes in
their neighborhoods.

Since that time, the complex has changed management companies and has
been renamed the Summerfield Apartments.

When he learned that a meth lab had once been inside one of the
units, property manager Porfirio Landin said he was shocked.

"I was very surprised," he said. "I've been managing properties since
1993, and I'd never come across anyone having something like that in
a rental with so many other people around."

Landin added that his apartment complex has instituted a
zero-tolerance policy for any drug activity, which means a tenant
will be evicted if found to have violated that rule.

It applies to the tenants and their guests.

"This drug is where people are, plain and simple," said James Valle,
a criminal intelligence specialist with the Inland Narcotics Clearing
House. That is an arm of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department
and the California Department of Justice that analyzes criminal statistics.

From 2003 to 2004, property crimes in the Coachella Valley jumped 53
percent, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report.

It's an increase that mirrors national statistics.

According to the National Association of Counties, based in
Washington, D.C., 70 percent of the 500 law enforcement agencies
included in the group's nationwide survey on meth said the drug is a
direct cause of increases in burglaries and robberies in their areas.

And more than 50 percent said it factored into many incidents of
domestic violence, assault and identity theft.

"Not a night goes by," said Cpl. Dennis Gutierrez, a spokesman for
the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, "when deputies don't
encounter somebody who is either high from it or has committed some
kind of crime because of it."

Coachella Valley: Distribution hub for meth Federal drug enforcement
officials say the Coachella Valley is a vast distribution hub where
drug traffickers can supply meth to not just other parts of
California but also to the rest of the country.

Much of the meth that comes into the valley originates in Mexico and
enters the United States at the Calexico border, about 90 miles from
the southeastern corner of the Coachella Valley.

Calexico's border facility is the third largest in the United States.

Each day, approximately 16,000 vehicles pass through Calexico's 10
primary vehicle lanes, according to U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officials.

Built in the 1970s, the facility has a multi-pronged enforcement
strategy. In addition to the staff in the primary vehicle lane
booths, there are other officers roaming the traffic lanes with dogs
trained to detect contraband U both drugs and people.

"We see narcotics smuggled in the same compartments over and over
again," said Bruce Whitford, passenger branch chief for U.S. Customs
and Border Protection.

"There are only certain areas where you can hide drugs and people."

Source: U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and
Border Protection

The Methamphetamine trail The meth trade in the U.S. began as an
industry staffed by outlaw bikers who cooked up their toxic
concoctions in small town kitchens, bathtubs, garages and basements
throughout California.

They transported the drugs in the crankshafts of their motorcycles -
hence the drug's nickname "crank."

Over the past 20 years, it has become a multi-million dollar
industry, largely run by Mexican drug cartels.

The cartel chemists cook their products in "super labs" - named for
their abilities to produce amounts of the drug in excess of 10 pounds.

Cheap and easy to make, the drug consists largely of household items,
many already found in our homes, said Commander Fred Fierro, of the
Coachella Valley Narcotics Task Force. That group investigates
street-level drug sales throughout the valley.

The remaining ingredients could be easily purchased at local
convenience stores - before the meth epidemic swept the country.

Today, the precursors - pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in
cold and sinus medicine, hydrogen chloride gas and anhydrous ammonia
- used to make the drug are strictly regulated, Fierro said.

Source: Coachella Valley Narcotics Task Force

A path of destruction Not only has meth become the No. 1 drug of
choice in the Coachella Valley, its popularity has spread across
California and the United States.

And as the process of cooking has been refined, so has the drug's quality.

Known initially as the "poor man's cocaine," meth is now more
available and more affordable than cocaine or crack.

It also has evolved from a granulated substance into a more potent
and more addictive form called "ice."

It is "ice" that is crossing the country.

From the Coachella Valley, meth moves east, where its value
increases exponentially.

Even though super labs - sites that produce upward of 10 pounds of
meth at a time - have been found in large cities, meth-making is
still a largely rural venture.

As a result, the drug is not as readily available in large quantities
in parts of the East.

A pound of meth will fetch about $5,000 locally. But that same pound
is sold for $25,000 in places like New York City, Atlanta, Boston and
Washington, D.C., said Fred Fierro, commander of the Coachella Valley
Narcotics Task Force, which operates out of Palm Springs. It
investigates street-level drug sales throughout the valley.

What happens after it moves east translates into the simplest form of
economics: supply and demand.

"Since it's more addictive, you're back more often," Fierro said.
"And each time the craving is harder."

Source: Coachella Valley Narcotics Task Force