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.

JAMES LEE ASH - THE RISE AND FALL OF A NEVADA METH ADDICT

In 2002, the new Sierra Nevada College President James Lee Ash Jr.,
hosted a holiday party at his Incline Village home for more than 100
school officials and community members.

There were catered food, decorations, a roaring fireplace and a man
playing a grand piano. Along with his wife, Patricia, Ash greeted every guest.

A few years earlier, the Ph.D. scholar and ordained minister ended a
10-year stint as president of California's Whittier College, where he
had been credited with turning around its dismal finances and
increasing its student body numbers. Previously, Ash had been a
professor and administrator for a dozen years at University of Miami
and had served on U.S. Department of Education panels and was
appointed to policymaking boards.

But less than a year after that holiday party, Sparks police arrested
Ash in a motel room known for its cheap rates. Ash, then 58,
possessed methamphetamine and hypodermic needles and was in the
company of an 18-year-old drug felon.

In drug circles, injection users are considered hard-core addicts.
Those who smoke or snort meth may contend they are only recreational
users, but people who inject do so because needles allow the drug to
travel directly to the bloodstream, providing an immediate and intense high.

Ash immediately resigned as college president. Soon, he was sued by
Greater Nevada Credit Union for failing to repay a $32,000 loan.

In the next two years, Ash, a father of two adult children, would be
arrested three more times in connection to his methamphetamine
addiction, which occasionally made him psychotic and prompted an
involuntary committal at the state mental hospital. Meth caused him
to lose his wife, career, finances and reputation.

His last arrest in September came months after he completed a
court-ordered, 28-day residential drug treatment program in Fallon,
which he still owes $35,000 for services.

These days, Ash calls Warm Springs Correctional Facility in Carson
City his home after being convicted of two felonies related to
possessing large amounts of methamphetamine. Attempts to reach Ash in
prison were unsuccessful.

The 61-year-old's experiences with meth are an example of how
far-reaching the drug is -"" it can captivate anyone, no matter how
intelligent, wealthy or respected.

"Mr. Ash is a prime example of how anyone can fall prey to the
seduction of meth," according to a court document written by officers
investigating his criminal history.

Astonishment

at Ash's addiction

During Ash's 2005 sentencing hearing, Judge Janet Berry called meth
"an al Qaida event in our county."

"This is the most phenomenal drug addiction event I have observed in
the last 10 years," Berry said "And every human being who walks in
here is addicted to meth. For a person of your intelligence and
abilities you had, and the work you had done in your life -- to have
multiple Ph.Ds, being able to mold young minds, being a professor,
educator and leader, then to have this addiction, this drug, destroy
everything you have worked for in your life is really most extraordinary."

Ash told Berry that the last three years had been "extraordinarily"
difficult for him and that he took responsibility for all of his problems.

"I am grateful at this point to the men and women of law enforcement
who arrested me, because they in fact, literally saved my life," he
said in court.

A prosecutor said Ash's attitude was a factor in his addiction and
subsequent criminal ways.

"Ash had made comments that because of his intelligence or arrogance,
he would not get addicted and he thought that because of his
position, he was above the law," John Helzer, assistant Washoe County
district attorney, said during a court hearing.

"He assumed because of his intellectual attainment that he was immune
to the destructive spiral of the inevitable ... the inevitable that
accompanies addiction," he said.

During his legal troubles, Ash received counseling at A Rainbow
Place, Northern Nevada's Gay and Lesbian Community Center. According
to a letter written by a Rainbow Place counselor, Ash began using
meth at parties in Hollywood and the habit increased when he moved to
the Lake Tahoe area and wanted more energy at the higher altitude.

'Meth seems to be a trap'

When word of Ash's first arrest hit the Whittier College community,
Bill Bell, publisher of the Pasadena Star-News, equated the event to
the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and President Kennedy,
Columbine, and the Apollo and space shuttle disasters.

"James Ash ... one of our most respected citizens, at the helm of our
proud little private Whittier College ... . An ordained minister, he
was hailed not only as a man of God at a college with deep Quaker
roots but as a genius of finance and student recruitment," Bell wrote
in an editorial days after Ash's July 2003 arrest.

"He just projected a pretty clean image all the time he was here,"
Bell said in an interview earlier this month. "This goes way beyond
my imagination. Meth seems to be a trap, and unfortunately, he was
naive to think he would get away from it."

During a hearing in the county's drug court, Judge Peter Breen said
Ash needed to strip away the denial that "often comes along with a
man who has accomplished as much as he has."

"If there were ever a person in need of treatment, it's Mr. Ash," Breen said.

Path of destruction

Following his first arrest in July 2003, Ash was arrested again a few
months later for trespassing at an apartment complex. That event was
related to a drug relapse, court records show. In October 2003, a
Sparks police officer had Ash committed to the state's mental
hospital because Ash was using a knife to cut imaginary rings from
his fingers. Ash told the officer he saw concerts and parades
performed in his honor outside his apartment.

In January 2005 his probation officer was contacted by employees of
Northern Nevada HOPES, a center that mostly assists indigent HIV and
AIDS patients. They said Ash claimed worms were coming out of his
body and that he needed help. Ash left before police arrived, but his
probation officer went to his home on West Second Street and found
numerous bottles of sex lubricant, two bags of crystal meth, 31
hypodermic needles and a gay pornographic video, court records show.

Methamphetamine heightens the sexual appetite and many users, experts
say, have large pornography collections and engage in random sex.

Ash was given a drug test, and when he tested positive for meth, he
was arrested again. He was ordered to drug rehab, which he completed
in March 2005.

Pleading with the court

John Bond, program director for Ash's treatment center, New
Frontiers, begged the court not to give up on Ash.

"I have not found a single offender with the understanding that Ash
has regarding his substance abuse, medical aspects related to it, the
humility of recovery to overcoming and accepting what's left of the
struggle," Bond wrote in a letter March 21, 2005. "...don't quit on
him before the miracle is complete."

Six months after he graduated from the treatment program, Ash was
arrested in a Reno Dairy Queen parking lot. Officers thought they
were responding to a medical call because witnesses said the driver
of a pickup had been in the lot for about eight hours. The driver was
Ash, and when police approached him, he appeared under the influence
of drugs and said he was waiting for a friend. Police found a
suitcase with numerous hypodermic needles and two bags of crystal meth.

Ash asked the officers if there was any way out of going back to
jail. He said he knew having the meth was wrong and said he bought it
for $150, according to a police affidavit.

During Ash's 2005 sentencing, Berry told him, "You no longer function
as a human."

"You are a retarded person who will need to be institutionalized,"
she said. "Your intelligence does not outweigh the addictive
properties of this drug."