Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

STARTING YOUNG, LOSING IT ALL

When Christine Lucas was 17, she gave birth to her second child in
three years. When the baby was found to have marijuana in her system,
Lucas was accepted into Washoe County's drug court along with her husband.

Fifteen months later, Lucas graduated from the court's program and
delivered her third child. The baby was drug free. Lucas was 19.

While drug court officials say that 80 percent of the court's
defendants will not be arrested again following their graduation and
will remain sober, Lucas wasn't one of them.

Her methamphetamine addiction resurfaced after drug court and would
ultimately cause her to lose all parental rights and send her to jail
for crimes related to methamphetamine. While these consequences
typically motivate parents to quit drugs, it only fueled Lucas'
desire to get high.

"You can put all the programs together you want and it's great, but
the only way to get clean is if you want to," said Lucas, now 26. "I
wanted to get high. Drug court did help me for 15 months, but I still
wanted to do drugs.

"They can keep all the addicts locked up in a room, but the biggest
thing is that the addicts have to want to change. Eventually I
learned that I had to grow up and be on my own without drugs," said
Lucas, who kicked her meth habit three years ago.

'Slamming dope every day'

When Lucas was 21 her children """" ages 2, 4 and 6 """" were taken
away from her when social workers, alerted by an anonymous tip, went
to her Sun Valley home and found unsafe conditions.

"After my kids were taken is when I went all out," Lucas said. "If I
hadn't been slamming (injecting) dope every day, I would have gotten
them back."

Lucas later ended up in jail for stealing copper wire to sell to
recycling businesses.

"Nothing mattered after they took my kids away after two and a half
years of robbing and cooking (meth)," she said. "When I was in jail I
realized I would never see my kids again until they were 18. The
court asks a drug addict to stay clean then they take their heart and
soul away? No way."

The last time she saw her children was by accident a few years ago.
She had been at a McDonald's restaurant with her friend's children.

"It was amazing to see them," she said. "Nothing will ever beat that
feeling. They made me leave though."

Lucas visited her children when they were still in emergency foster
care before they were adopted. She said her daughter used to ask her
when she could come home. Lucas will not be allowed to see them until
they are 18.

Starting young

Lucas began smoking marijuana when she was 9. She also used meth and
began running away from home.

"I ran away to downtown (Reno) and you can find meth there if you
want it," she said. "You don't find many clean people hanging around
the streets at night."

Lucas dropped out of Traner Middle School after she got in trouble
for selling marijuana. She had her first child when she was 14. She
had her second at 16. After she lost her parental rights, she worked
as a prostitute and became homeless.

She began to cook meth, stealing cold pills that contained ephedrine,
in storage units and motel rooms. When she didn't have money for a
motel, she would call the local non-profit agency that assists
battered women, telling them she was beaten by her boyfriend and
needed a free place to stay. Lucas would then cook meth in the room
the agency supplied her.

She also stole coins from laundromats, newspaper machines and parking
meters. She looked in dumpsters for items to pawn.

"I never thought I would ever do any of that, and now I think about
all the stupid (expletive) I did it's incredible," she said.

Trying to forget

"It made it where I didn't think about the kids being gone," she
said. "I was high enough that all I thought about was getting high.
But everything was a fight. Sex was the only good thing, but then you
have it with people you never would have before."

Lucas said she injected meth for two and a half years.

"When you're doing it you don't think abut anything other than your
next high, robbing to get it or making another batch," she said.

Because she injected herself with meth that contained lye, her arm
will eventually have to be amputated, she said. She covers the needle
tracks with a tattoo. Her teeth are decayed and she has back and
spine problems.

But life is better now. She has a job. As long as she is not around
negative or drug-using people, she is all right.

"Now, I think of boyfriends," she said. "Life had been people on dope
who only thought about screwing other people to get dope."