HOMEMADE METH LEAVES SCARS ON RURAL INDIANA

Three days before the election, Gov. Joe Kernan received a report from
a task force set up to study the problem of methamphetamines in
Indiana. The drug, which can be homemade in garages or barns or cooked
outdoors in rural cemeteries, has reached epidemic proportions in our
state. Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel says 85 percent of inmates in
his jail are facing meth-related charges.

Three days after the election, 4-year-old Tyler Fogarty became the
poster boy for the problem. Summoned at 1:30 a.m. to his home in
Roachdale, Putnam County police officials found the boy abused and
unconscious, soaking in a bathtub where he was placed by his mother's
boyfriend. Crystal meth was plainly visible in the house, and the boy
died the next day. The boyfriend and the mother are in the Putnam
County lockup, where Sheriff Mark Frisbie says that 90 percent of his
law enforcement work now involves meth: people making it, taking it or
stealing to get it.

Six months ago, with the cooperation of the entire justice system in
Putnam County, four DePauw students prepared a documentary on this
dangerously destructive, homegrown drug. They worked their way up and
down the courthouse from judge to prosecutor to public defender. They
interviewed the sheriff, the drug cops, the probation officer. They
talked to prisoners doing time in the county lockup on meth charges
and to retailers who sell the ingredients.

They learned about it from both sides of the law -- how meth is made
and how easy it is to get the chemicals. "I can get it in half a day
from Wal-Mart, Ace Hardware and anhydrous from the co-op, "a seasoned
meth cook told them. "Meth? You can make it in your basement," says
Judge Diana LaViolette.

From those in jail waiting for trial, they learned how addictive it
is. "Once you start making it, you don't want to do anything else,"
said one. "Every paycheck I got went straight to dope." They were also
told how meth peddlers build a market: "Give it away the first time.
'Hey, you want to try this?' After that they're begging for it."

Authorities call meth a redneck drug, abused mainly by white,
blue-collar, lower middle-class people. And, while Indiana is supposed
to be a rehabilitative state, we have no treatment programs for people
incarcerated for meth or on parole. That leads to an extremely high
percentage of recidivism. "I never had a meth addict that ever quit
and didn't return to it," said parole officer Theresa Parrish.

First offenders improve their skills in jail. Sheriff Frisbie told the
students, "If you're a budding meth cook and you want to get better,
get locked up." A repeat offender facing 10 years adds, "It's all they
talk about in jail, all you hear, how to cook meth."

Interviews with Family and Social Services professionals highlighted
the explosion in child abuse and neglect cases involving parents
making or using meth. In Putnam County, kids ages 13 and 15 were
caught helping a woman cook the drug. That's where 4-year-old Tyler
Fogarty comes in. Roachdale neighbors suspected drug use and child
abuse, but no one reported it.

In Putnam, officials plan to go town by town and hold meetings on
meth. In the Roachdale VFW Hall, an 82-year-old woman told Frisbie,
"This damned dope is floating all over Roachdale and nobody is doing
anything about it."

Frisbie has often said that the sheriff's department cannot cover
every hill and hollow, that the first line of responsibility lies with
neighbors. Report suspected drug activity so surveillance can be set
up, he advised, take down license plates of suspect vehicles and don't
be afraid to report it, the information will be kept confidential.
That much might have saved Tyler Fogarty.

Meth is a plague in small towns and rural Indiana, and it is
spreading. The state task force reported that the number of meth cases
has gone up 200 percent since 1999, and meth seizures jumped from 177
to 1,500 in the same period. This has cost the state $100 million. In
Vigo County, Sheriff Marvel's jail budget has risen from $812,000 to
$3.5 million.

In his RV travels, listening to cops and county officials all over
Indiana, incoming Gov. Mitch Daniels got an earful about how meth has
become our No. 1 law enforcement problem. Kernan received the task
report on meth; Daniels can act on it.

Bode, a former senior political analyst for CNN, is the Pulliam
professor of journalism at DePauw University.