CRYSTAL METH CRIME WAVE IS ON WAY TO FIRST COAST

Call it the rural cocaine.

Georgia's prisons are overflowing. And the inmates fueling the boom
aren't those who committed their crimes while heeding the call of
crack cocaine, but those who were heeding the call of another
seductive substance -crystal methamphetamine.

Crank.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Georgia Department
of Corrections learned that some 250 to 300 people were being
incarcerated each month on crank-related charges.

That's five to six times the number of people who were being
imprisoned on such charges five years ago.

Crystal meth offenders, along with an influx of prisoners being moved
from county jails to the state prison system, have pushed Georgia's
prison system almost 7 percent over capacity. It gains about 5,000
inmates each year.

And what's happening in Georgia, which ranks fifth in the nation and
just behind Florida in prison population, ought to serve as a
cautionary tale for those who believe that drug damages never march
past the boundaries of poor, black inner-city areas.

It also ought to shred stereotypes about who uses drugs. The majority
of crank users are white. For that matter, two-thirds of all the crack
users are white and Hispanic - even though blacks use the drug at a
higher rate.

And people who crave crank hurt their rural and suburban neighbors in
much the same way that crack addicts hurt their urban neighbors.

The main difference among the users relates to wealth.

In a poor neighborhood where there are few legitimate jobs and where
many people tend to operate mostly on cash, crack addicts usually
break in homes to finance their habits. They might also commit robberies.

Crystal meth addicts, who feed their arm with ingredients cooked up
with household chemicals in home labs, also commit some of the same
crimes.

But it seems more of them have access to computers and checking
accounts, as well as neighbors who may have forgotten to put their
credit card statements through the shredder before putting them in the
trash can.

So the crank craze has led to more dumpster diving - and more identity
theft.

According to a 2004 ABC News report, police raided a San Diego
operation being run by meth users and found a computer with identity
information from 45 people. They were going to use that information to
create drivers' licenses and apply for credit.

"ID theft seems to be the new big thing for them [meth users]," Cpl.
Dave Reagan of the Spokane, Wash., County Sheriff's Office told ABC
News. "It seems to be more profitable, because you can actually recoup
100 percent of whatever you're trying to turn around."

Bad checks are also big with crank addicts. One Spokane woman wrote
more than $45,000 worth of them to feed her habit.

Now crank has found its way to Georgia. And if the reports from the
Midwest and West are any indication, and if the Peach State's current
prison boom is any indication, it's time for Northeast Florida to
brace for the wave of drug-related crime and social crises that crank
can set off.

This city, in fact, has already been warned. Jacksonville Community
Council's recent murder study stated that a growing number of
methamphetamine labs were being found here, and that the city should
begin to prepare for meth-related violence and murder.

I hope things never come to that.

But it's time to prepare. Now is the time to put more money into drug
treatment and education programs that warn of the horrors of the drug.

The last thing that ought to be done, however, is to pre-empt the
problem with threats of punitive measures such as mandatory minimums.
Georgia is one of the toughest states around when it comes to handing
out tough sentences. But if those measures were enough to scare
everyone straight, its prisons wouldn't be bursting at the seams.

As communities prepare to grapple with the crank problem, I hope
people begin to see that addiction and its accompanying damages can
cut a destructive swath. And when it comes to drug-related crime, no
one can afford to be in a "it can't happen here" state of mind.

It can. And in Georgia, it is.