Series: A RIsing Blight - Day 3: The Solution - Part 3D

Community Joins The Battle

DAVIESS FINDS TEAMWORK CRUCIAL TO STEMMING TIDE

Retailers, Guard Help Fight Meth

OWENSBORO, Ky. - When meth began surging into Daviess County, the community
joined to battle it together.

Now its innovative methods may be a model for other communities faced with
a rising meth problem, officials in and out of the county say.

This year, Daviess County logged 159 indictments for manufacturing and
dealing methamphetamine, up from 58 in 1999.

Sheriff's Lt. Jeff Jones conceded that meth has not been stopped.

"But what we realized right off the bat here is that it was going to take a
proactive approach and that it was going to have to be the community that
would solve this problem," said Jones, commander of the investigations
division of the Daviess County Sheriff's Department.

Jones and others believe the problem would be worse if not for the
community's efforts.

Kentucky Attorney General Greg Stumbo said the early focus by Daviess
County Sheriff Keith Cain has paid off. "Daviess County and the sheriff are
on the forefront by the cutting-edge approach they've taken," Stumbo said.

That approach has ranged from seeking outside help to educating merchants
about how their products can be used to make the drug.

Specifically:

Owensboro pharmacists and retailers voluntarily limit sales of legal
ingredients used to make meth.

Sheriff's deputies use federal funds to work overtime to clean up meth labs
and maintain surveillance of tanks of anhydrous ammonia, which is used to
make the drug.

Soldiers from the Kentucky Army National Guard provide surveillance,
meth-lab cleanup and other support roles.

Since 2000, nearly 100 drug defendants have graduated from the county's
drug court. Circuit Judge Thomas Castlen said the recidivism rate for
graduates has been about 2percent.

Limiting Sales

Retailers Voluntarily Keep Eye On Cold Pills

At Danhauer Drug Co. in downtown Owensboro, a family-owned store since
1904, customers are limited to one bottle of cold pills at a time. Asking
for more can bring scrutiny, including in some cases a call to police,
pharmacist Jeff Danhauer said.

"It started about five or six years ago," Danhauer said. "We don't want to
see any drug abused, so pharmacists started restricting the use of products
like that ourselves and at the same time law enforcement was trying to
watch the sales of it, too."

Danhauer said convenience stores and groceries are less likely to pay as
much attention to over-the-counter sales than pharmacies, but Jones said
that after several years of asking, nearly every store in the county has
agreed to voluntarily limit such sales.

That includes T's Tobacco Outlet, employee Brenda Ball said.

"We have a sign on the front that says 'Two is the rule,'" she said. "Since
that's been there, very seldom do you ever get a question about wanting more."

Capt. David Osborne, the county's deputy sheriff, said the community has
made it so hard for abusers to buy ingredients that they search for them
elsewhere.

Outside Help

Federal Money, Guard Are Crucial To Efforts

Osborne said the largest drain on the department has been cleaning up meth
labs, which pose environmental and health risks long after they have been
abandoned.

In 1998, just months after the county's first lab bust, officers found a
meth lab so large that they had to work through the weekend cleaning it up.
That exhausted all of the department's overtime funds for the year.

Since then, federal funds distributed by U.S. Rep. Ron Lewis, R-2nd
District, have supplemented local money for overtime, Osborne said. And
since 1998, the county has cleaned up more than 300 meth labs, said former
Daviess County drug detective Jim Acquisto.

The Kentucky Army National Guard also has helped by using troops for
surveillance of tanks of anhydrous ammonia, which can be used to make the
drug, he said.

Col. Phil Miller, public affairs officer for the Kentucky National Guard,
said soldiers have helped the state's drug eradication efforts since 1989.

He declined to provide details about how soldiers are used in Daviess
County, but he said they always work in support roles alongside civilian
law-enforcement agencies.

Capt. David Altman, a spokesman for the Guard, said slightly more than
$12million will be spent throughout the state on the effort during the 2004
fiscal year and in 2005.

Regarding drug courts, Castlen said some critics of the local drug court
complain that it lavishes too much attention on its participating offenders.

But he contended the court is a sound investment in time and money. The
program began with local funds in 2000 but is now paid for by federal grants.

"In regular court, I have to rely on just the report from parole and listen
to the arguments between defense counsel and the commonwealth. Here I can
really hear it from them," he said of the participants.

Castlen said that each of the approximately 60 current participants keeps a
daily journal, which he can read.

He said he begins by trying hard to treat each participant with respect,
but that does not mean a free pass.

"While we understand that relapse is a part of recovery, there is a
sanction for every mistake that the participant makes and they are held
accountable and responsible," he said.

Castlen said that treating participants with dignity makes sense, and it
helps them rebuild lives nearly destroyed by drugs. That in turn, pays
dividends for the county as a whole, he said.

"Many people who are suffering from alcohol and drug addiction are
committing crimes that affect everyone - thefts, bad checks, all sorts of
crimes that relate to substance-abuse problems," he said.