METH AS LETHAL FOR FAMILIES AS BODIES

The Drug Destructive Often Devours Parents, Then Sets To Work On Kids

Whether it's smoked, snorted, swallowed or injected, methamphetamine is
more addictive and more damaging to the brain than cocaine, heroin and most
other illegal drugs.

It's also unusually efficient at ruining lives, ensnaring entire families
and turning parents and children into addicts fixated only on their next
euphoric high.

"If the adults use it, the kids are going to be around it and get roped
in," said Dr. William Haning, director of the Addiction Psychiatry
Residency Program for the University of Hawaii's medical school. "As crazy
as this sounds, the parent won't necessarily see this as a bad thing."

Many recovering meth-amphetamine addicts say they were hooked after using
the drug just once. They say meth took over their lives, destroying their
ability to work and to function as parents

Bonnie Roller, 42, of Sparta, said that when she began using and making
meth at home, she was determined to keep her teenage son away from it. But
her addiction quickly destroyed any control she had over her own life and
his. Her son also ended up hooked.

Both were arrested in 2001, Roller said, as they tried to buy ingredients
to manufacture more meth.

"Meth will eat up your mind," said Roller, now recovering from her
addiction. "I wanted to be a good mother. It breaks my heart that I wasn't."

Such stories have become increasingly common as the meth epidemic continues
to sweep from west to east across the country.

"The threat associated with methamphetamine trafficking and abuse has
increased sharply since 2002 and now exceeds that of any other drug,"
according to the National Drug Intelligence Center.

"If you want to lose everything in your life, just try meth," said Paula
Cook of Muskogee, Okla., whose addiction cost her a job as a police
dispatcher and custody of three of her six children.

It takes meth addicts between 12 and 24 months to fight back from their
habit, longer than it takes cocaine or heroin addicts to recover.

And recent studies show meth does more damage to the brain than other
drugs. A 2004 study by UCLA researchers, for example, showed meth causes
"severe gray-matter deficits" in the brain — comparable to the damage
apparent in the early stages of dementia.

"It erases all your feelings and rational judgments because it is so
addictive," said Cook, 41. "It is not a recreational drug but a progressive
disease."

Meth addiction is facilitated by a misconception — that it's safe to use
because amphetamines have legitimate medical uses as weight-loss aids or to
treat sleep disorders or attention deficit disorder in children.

"People claim that it helps them work better," Haning said. "It's sometimes
easier for the family to legitimize usage."

But he and other experts warn that there's nothing safe about meth. The
drug causes large increases in the brain's production of mood-enhancing
dopamine, in some cases permanently damaging dopamine cells.

"It is one of the most toxic drugs to the brain, ranking high with gasoline
inhalants," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse in Washington. "It lasts in your brain much longer than cocaine."

Jody Gentry, 36, of Reeds Spring, became so dependent on meth in 2000 that
he abandoned his wife and moved into her car. That allowed him to spend all
his time looking for remote places in the woods to set up his portable lab,
cook meth and get high.

"All I cared about was me and my habit," said Gentry, now recovering from
his addiction. "Once I tried it, I was hooked and thought about it every day."