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.

A DRUG ADDICTION THAT KNOWS NO SOCIAL NOR MONETARY BOUNDARIES, METH
HAS EXPLODED IN NEVADA

A few years ago, counselors, police officers, judges and store clerks
already knew what the statistics would later confirm:
methamphetamine, a cheap, potent drug that produces a lasting high
and can be manufactured at home with off-the-shelf cold medicine, had
surpassed alcohol as the most popular drug among those addicted to
substances in Nevada.

The number of drug users admitted to state-funded programs for
addiction to meth outpaced the number of alcoholics in those programs
for the first time in 2002.

In fact, while the number of alcoholics had stabilized and had even
declined since 1996, the total number of meth addicts had more than
doubled so that by 2005, there were 75 percent more meth addicts
seeking treatment in Nevada's state-funded programs than alcoholics.

Those who were cleaning up the mess made by Nevada's meth problem
could have predicted it years before.

A three-month investigation by the Reno Gazette-Journal has found
that meth's grip on Northern Nevada has become a stranglehold,
destroying families; clogging up courts, jails and treatment centers;
and fueling a boom in petty crime as desperate addicts steal to feed
their habit. It's a problem that has left parents numb and frightened
as they try to keep their kids off of the plentiful drug, and it's a
burgeoning social ill that has judges and law enforcement wondering
whether there is any way to stem the tide.

"I have come to the conclusion (that) this may be an al-Qaida event
in our county," Washoe District Court Judge Janet Berry said last
year when she sentenced a 60-year-old former college president to
prison for his meth abuse.

"This is the most phenomenal drug addiction event I have observed in
the last 10 years. Every human that walks in here is addicted to
meth. .. (It) turns your brain, turns it into a black, messy,
retarded piece of gunk, and you no longer function as a human."

If drug treatment programs funded by Nevada taxpayers were
represented as 100 chairs set up in a circle -- as for a group
counseling session -- then 17 of those chairs would have been taken
up by meth addicts in 1996. By 2004, 29 chairs would have been taken
by meth addicts; and by 2005, the number of chairs would reach 35.
Those six additional meth addicts represent the biggest one-year
increase since 1995.

What's more, the number of arrests for meth possession in Washoe
County jumped an alarming 40 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to
a Gazette-Journal analysis of jail booking records for Sparks and
Reno police departments, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office and the
Nevada Highway Patrol.

While meth arrests dipped from 2001 to 2002 and averaged 614 arrests
a year from 2001 to 2004, the number of arrests reached 932 in 2005.
Arrests for possession of meth with intent to sell increased 32
percent from 2004 to 2005, going from 173 arrests to 229.

The rates of women incarcerated in the Washoe County Jail for meth
sales, trafficking and possession increased 523 percent during the
last five years, according to the sheriff's office. Detention
officials say this increase has prompted a need for an expansion of the jail.

"Absolutely, it's pandemic," said Nevada Highway Patrol Capt. Scott
Jackson, who used to lead the Tri-Net narcotics task force in Carson
City and is working to start a highway interdiction team in Northern
Nevada. "It is pandemic because I think you'll see the trends
sweeping the nation and reaching the eastern seaboard. I'm not sure
how much worse it can get."

Other troubling developments

The newspaper's analysis found other disturbing trends, including:

In 2003, the last year for which complete data is available, Nevada
ranked first in the U.S. in the percentage of high school students
who had used meth at least once, with a rate of 12.5 percent,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth
Risk Behavior Surveillance.

But among male high school students, Nevada ranked only 11th, at 8.9 percent.

What raised the state's overall rate to No. 1 was the staggering 16.2
percent of high school girls who had tried meth at least once. That
percentage was more than 30 percent higher than the next closest
state -- Wyoming, at 12.3 percent -- and was a higher
drug-experimentation level than for any other drug anywhere among
either males or females. The rate among Washoe County high school
girls was 16.1 percent.

"To a parent whose child has a methamphetamine problem, the issue is
right in their home," said Kevin Quint, who heads the newly formed
Meth Community Response Alliance, who's aim is to promote meth
awareness. "That's true, provided the parent knows their child has a
problem and that the parent knows something about the drug, which
isn't always the case."

But there is good news

It's not all bad news in the state's fight against its meth problem, however.

Although the state leads the country in the number of high schoolers
who have taken the drug at least once, that number is still smaller
than it was two years before, dropping from 15.6 percent in 2001 to
12.5 percent.

And the percentage of high school girls in Washoe County who say they
have tried meth at least once has dropped dramatically, from the 16.1
percent recorded in 2003 to 7.7 percent last year. Unfortunately, the
rate for Washoe high school boys climbed from 11.9 percent to 12.8
percent, state officials say.

A group of specialty courts in Washoe County is enjoying great
success in keeping meth addicts on the straight and narrow. Although
they say more than 80 percent of their adult and juvenile defendants
are methamphetamine addicts and that relapses among meth users are
common, 80 percent of the graduates from the court's five programs do
not get rearrested for drug-related crimes.

Some efforts are under way in Northern Nevada high schools to address
the problem. Students at Carson High, for instance, recently received
a federal grant to produce a movie recreating the experiences of one
female student there who became addicted to meth.

"I think the impetus to all of this (is) I've had a number of
students over the years affected by drugs and it's always bugged me,"
Carson High teacher Brian Reedy said. "(I started looking for a
grant) after last year when Cyndle (Bell, the student who the video
is based on) ended up in juvenile hall for the third time and one of
my other students overdosed (on prescription drugs) and ended up in a coma."

They hope to distribute that video across the country. High schools
hope to diminish demand for meth by educating students about how
addictive and life-damaging it is, and students are saying they want
more information about the drug.

And law-enforcement agencies are working together to strangle the
flow of meth into Northern Nevada from meth super labs in Mexico. The
network of agencies across Northern Nevada includes local street
enforcement teams, the Drug Enforcement Agency and task forces in
Douglas and Lyon counties and Carson City. The Department of Public
Safety oversees narcotic task forces in eastern Nevada, Elko, north
central Nevada, Humboldt, Pershing and Lander counties, near Mesquite
and South Lake Tahoe.

"Meth is a huge problem in Nevada and the nation," said Nevada
Attorney General George Chanos. "I don't believe Washington yet
realizes the scope of the problem. The significance of the problem
can't be overstated.

"I've seen pictures of users that show young people full of life and
beauty before they were exposed to meth," Chanos said. "After they
use, they look like one step removed from the grave. Meth is a
complicated problem that requires a multi-dimensional solution."