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 TEEN'S REBELLION, A PARENT'S NIGHTMARE

Steve Finnell found a glass drug pipe in his moody 15-year-old
daughter Lexi's bedroom.

He confronted Lexi and her friends.

She said it wasn't hers. It belonged to another friend. She just put
it in her drawer after the group took it away from their friend.

"You didn't want to think your child was doing that," Steve Finnell said.

So Lexi, her dad and her friends had a ceremony of sorts that
included crushing the pipe and a lecture about the dangers of drugs.

"They looked me in the eye and swore they wouldn't do drugs," Steve
Finnell said.

But after Lexi ran away from home three times -- once for six months
- -- and tested positive for methamphetamine, Steve Finnell realized it
was going to take more than lectures to save his daughter.

How could a girl from a loving family, whose parents can afford to
buy her nice things, who was in Girl Scouts, an honor roll
student/athlete who had the same friends since kindergarten, be
involved in meth?

But an increasing number of local parents are facing this dilemma.
Washoe Juvenile Services saw a 43 percent rise last year in
meth-abusing children referred to them after run-ins with the police.

"The biggest eye-opener was when she got arrested," Steve Finnell
said. "She came out of the house she had been staying in looking
sorrier than any human being. She was dirty and hadn't showered and
was high. They made her do sobriety tests and she was fluttering
around like a butterfly."

While many teens like Lexi need treatment and counseling, her father
found there were few resources in the community. And he discovered
there is little police can do.

After one of Lexi's disappearances, Steve Finnell gathered $50,000
and hired a team of former law enforcement officers to kidnap his
daughter and take her to an out-of-state treatment facility. But he
called it off at the last minute and Lexi soon returned home.

"We were frustrated," he said. "As a parent you're on your own. But
when she got involved in crime and was in the system, authorities
made sure she complied with the rules."

Lexi, now 17, said it was her rebellion from her parents and school
that initially sparked her meth use. She used her parents' divorce
when she was 11 as an excuse.

"We expected her to be a teen, and that there would be parties," her
dad said. "But never in my wildest dreams did I think this would
happen. I was raised in a drug culture, but I never realized the
devastation meth causes."

Getting addicted

It all began when Lexi was 15 and started hanging out with new
friends. She smoked crystal meth with them.

"After the second time, it was all I wanted to do," she said. "You
think you are happy and feel on top of the world."

Lexi said she stayed up late, playing cards and running amok in
downtown Reno. Soon, she tired of giving her parents excuses for why
she wasn't home. So she ran away.

"Meth is easy to get," she said. "You can walk downtown and 1 in 5
people will know how to get it. You don't want to make friends
because they are nice but because they are people who can get you
drugs, cheap drugs. That's what friendship was based on."

When she came back to her dad's house and tested positive for meth,
her parents closely supervised her.

"I couldn't be alone for five minutes," she said. "I was on an earn
system for everything. I had to earn the right to sleep in my own bed."

Steve Finnell said he wasn't asking for miracles. He just wanted her
to do normal day-to-day things like getting up, brushing her teeth
and eating breakfast. But she seemed to totally break down.

"I wanted to stay in bed all day," she said. "I wasn't motivated. I
could sleep 24 hours if they let me."

On top of the world?

After she got her license and a new car, she started hanging out with
the wrong crowd again and ran away once more.

"She would call me and I wouldn't know where she was," Steve Finnell
said. "I could tell she was high because she felt 10-foot high and
bulletproof. She didn't need anything and was better than everyone."

The first time Lexi ran away, she took a backpack. The second time,
she took clothes, and the third time, she took everything she would
want and need away from home.

She moved into a trailer on Fourth Street with some adults who were
cooking meth inside.

"I thought it was heaven because I got to do whatever I wanted every
day," she said. "But they were paranoid I was a runaway and that I'd
get them busted, so they kicked me out. But I still got meth from them."

So Lexi moved into her boyfriend's parents' home and vowed to stay
clean. She called her parents and let them know she was alive.

"The traditional methods are out the window," Steve Finnell said of
disciplining his drug-addicted daughter. "There is no 'Young lady I'm
taking you to counseling.' If they refuse, what are you supposed to do?

"I was judgmental and thought why not straighten these kids out?"
Steve Finnell said. "I would do this and that. But you'd be surprised
how little you can do."

Turning to crime

In the meantime, Lexi and her boyfriend got back into meth. He worked
and she didn't.

"We had a budget for gas and food and the rest we spent on drugs,"
Lexi said. "But we spent most of it on drugs."

Soon, she and her boyfriend began cashing checks stolen in burglaries.

"I had never done anything like that before," she said. "Money from
my boyfriend's job and crimes wasn't enough. We needed more. We were
greedy and selfish and everything is about you and what you want.

"It's always about money and drugs, no dreams," she said. "It's
usually about getting money for drugs."

During her time away from home, she had to get high to be motivated
to get up in the morning. She picked at her face, which turned a
shade of yellowish green. She ate hamburgers, candy and Slurpees,
although her weight plummeted to 102 pounds. People stole her
clothing, perfume and accessories.

"I looked in the mirror and thought how wonderful I look," she said.
"But people told me how horrible I looked."

Looking back, she said her meth addiction was the most horrible thing
she has ever put herself through. Her boyfriend was sentenced to
prison related to their meth crimes.

"It's scary, but she needed to hit rock bottom until she turned her
life around," her dad said. "And, that could have meant being dead."

Cleaning up a life

Following her arrest for trying to cash the stolen checks, Lexi said
she knew it was her responsibility to clean up her life. This time,
she really wanted to do it for herself.

"I'll never get over when I'm older and married with kids that I will
have to explain to them that when I was 15 I tried something that
ruined my life for two years," she said. "How do you tell them and
then ask them not to use drugs? I know too much about drugs and have
had too many experiences. It scares the crap out of me."

Finnell is a success story. She beat meth, is back home with her
family, back in school and has goals that don't include getting high
and playing cards all night with her friends.

But it wasn't easy. She had to do a lot of community service, endure
weekly drug tests and meetings with her probation officer, and had to
prove to her family that she could be trusted again.

"Between 15 and 17, I didn't get to be a real teen," Lexi said.
"These years are supposed to be fun and enjoying high school. But I
had to call my probation officer after my winter formal."

Lexi has successfully completed her probation and her mandatory
counseling. But she still goes to group therapy sessions because she
likes it. She wants to go to college.

Her message to teens and the community is simple: Just don't do it.

"It's hard for kids to say no but it's 10 times harder to pull
yourself up after you fall so hard and so fast," Lexi said. "I can't
think of any meth users who are successful in life. They all live on
the streets or are dead."