METH POISONS PANHANDLE: VENOM MAY SPREAD

BONIFAY - Tucked deep in the Florida Panhandle backwoods, Holmes
County has a history of residents who dabbled in making moonshine or
growing marijuana.

Now, some of those same people or their descendants have moved to a
new enterprise - cooking methamphetamine - and law enforcement
officials warn it could be a dangerous preview of what's in store
elsewhere across Florida.

``Meth will kill you,'' warned Holmes County Sheriff Dennis Lee, who
has declared war on what is known in the Bible Belt community as ``the
devil's drug.'' His slogan: ``Don't meth with the devil.''

While Florida's meth problem is considered in its infancy, it is
making its biggest inroads in this part of the state. Just more than
half of the 269 clandestine meth labs cleaned in Florida by the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration last year were in the Panhandle.

South and Central Florida have larger quantities of the drug because
those areas are supplied from California, Mexico and other outside
sources, but the homemade variety is expected to spread there once
local users learn the recipe.

``Our state is experiencing the same thing that our nation has,''
Florida Department of Law Enforcement special agent supervisor Ed
Hudson said. ``The methamphetamine problem started in the West and it
has worked its way east. It took hold in the western part of Florida
and it's working its way east.''

State, Federal Aid

In the year and a half since Lee declared his war on the drug in this
small county - population 18,628 - more than 700 people have been
arrested. Fifty-nine meth labs were raided last year; about half were
big enough to require federal cleanup.

Bay County, about 25 miles south of Holmes but with eight times the
population, led the state with 59 labs that qualified for DEA funding.
Holmes was next with 23. Another hot spot is Central Florida,
particularly Brevard, Polk, Pasco and Orange counties.

In response, authorities are conducting one-week courses periodically
at St. Petersburg College to train more officers in dealing with the
labs. FDLE also is attempting to maintain at least two agents in each
of six regions for lab busts.

Local agencies can apply for grants of up to $100,000 for major cases
from a $2.5 million state drug enforcement fund for such expenses as
overtime, information and equipment rental, Hudson said. Grants and
technical assistance also are available for prevention and treatment
programs.

The DEA spent more than $600,000 cleaning clandestine meth labs in
Florida during 2003. Each is a small toxic waste site that can include
anhydrous ammonia, red phosphorous and solvents used to process meth
from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine in over-the-counter cold remedies.

Those and most other materials used in cooking meth are common
household items readily available at retail stores, yet some are
explosive or toxic, causing lung, kidney, liver and brain damage,
blindness, burns, and death.

The finished product is highly addictive and can cause hallucinations,
insomnia, anorexia, stroke, brain damage or death.

``Out of all the drugs that I've used, ... it is the one that would
have ended up putting me in my grave,'' said Jeana Griffin, a
recovering addict who now counsels others hooked on meth in Holmes
County. ``Had I not been stopped, I would not have been able to stop
myself.''

She was stopped at the point of a gun April 17, 2003, when her lab was
raided.

``She was lying on the floor,'' Chief Deputy Eddie Ingram recalled.
``I had my machine gun literally to the back of her head.''

Costs Of Crackdown

The costs of Holmes' meth war have included buying or bartering for
military-style weapons, bulletproof vests and helmets because most
meth cooks are heavily armed and the drug can make them violent. The
right side of Ingram's face was reconstructed after he was hit with a
railroad spike during one lab raid.

Lee, who began with only 15 officers including himself, has hired five
more deputies to deal with meth, creating a narcotics unit and SWAT
team to raid the labs.

Ingram was among those hired. He was a narcotics captain with the
Metro Atlanta police but he's from nearby Dothan, Ala., and took a pay
cut to come home. Meth is a personal issue for him. His ex-wife was
killed in 1998 when she crashed her car while on meth.

``I raised my children without a mother on account of this stuff,''
Ingram said. ``So what I used to see as everybody else's problem
became my own.''

The meth war filled Holmes' new, 120-bed jail to capacity last year.
The costs of feeding and caring for twice as many inmates, most with
meth-related health problems, and providing defense lawyers strained
the county's limited resources.

County commissioners had to sell road equipment to make ends meet.
They supplemented the jail's medical budget by $25,000 last year and
then increased the sheriff's spending by $224,000 - 15 percent - to
$1.7 million.

Lee and his deputies speak to school, church and civic groups. A
faith-based group called Countywide Anti-Substance Abuse Efforts has
a 12- step rehab program.

Griffin, on probation after serving jail time, is a facilitator for
the rehab program. She speaks from experience. She blames drugs for
her failed marriage and causing her to desert her disabled mother. She
was raped, had an abortion and was beaten by a former boyfriend, also
a meth cook now serving 15 years on drug and other charges. She wasted
away, weighing about 85 pounds when arrested.

Perhaps the most distressing aspect of meth is how it affects
children. Seventy-four children have been taken from parents arrested
on meth charges in Holmes since February 2003.

They have been placed in foster care at a cost of $11 a day, Ingram
said. Many need medical care due to exposure to toxic substances.

Ingram credited the meth crackdown for a dramatic decline in
burglaries and other crime. Meth arrests also are starting to drop.

``I think we're over the hump,'' Lee said. ``I've had a lot of people
that we've put in jail ... who have thanked us for saving their lives.''