LOOMING METH EPIDEMIC FILLS JAILS, DESTROYS FAMILIES

As if Indiana's economy didn't have enough problems, a new one looms with
potentially disastrous consequences for taxpayers.

An epidemic in methamphetamine use and production is taxing law enforcement
agencies, pushing hundreds of children into the child protection system and
filling up county jails. The chilling facts:

Indiana ranks sixth in the nation in the number of meth labs seized by
police, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, who held a Feb. 6 field hearing
on the subject in Elkhart.

State police shut down 1,260 drug labs in 2003, up from 998 in 2002 and
just six in 1996.

Almost 200 children were present in households where meth arrests took
place last year. In most instances, those arrested also faced child neglect
charges and their children were funneled into an already overloaded Family
and Social Services Administration.

"It's going to bankrupt southwest Indiana," fears state Rep. Alan Chowning,
D-Sullivan. "We have to figure out some way to slow down the epidemic."

Chowning has sponsored a bill in the legislature establishing a task force
to develop a plan for combating meth abuse and manufacturing in Indiana.
House Bill 1136 passed the House 92-0, and is before the Senate, where its
principal sponsor is David C. Long, R-Fort Wayne.

Be assured, meth is not just a southwest Indiana problem. A scan of
newspaper headlines reveals cases from Elkhart to Evansville, Terre Haute
to Richmond, Fort Wayne to Indianapolis.

In two of the more recent, a multi-agency drug task force on Feb. 6 raided
a home in Angola suspected of being a meth lab. Police found meth and
anhydrous ammonia, a common agricultural fertilizer that is the drug's main
ingredient. On Feb. 5, State Police charged a Perry County couple with drug
and child neglect charges after officers found in their home more than 25
grams of meth and tools used in making it. The couple's two children were
placed with relatives.

Clandestine labs in Indiana are just one source of the drug. On Jan. 27,
U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney in Indianapolis sentenced Mexican
national Ramon Montero to 20 years in prison for running the largest meth
ring ever found in Indiana. The operation trafficked more than $156 million
in the substance in a single year.

Experts say the problem will get worse now that the price of meth has
dropped precipitously. Bill Wargo of the Elkhart County Prosecutor's Office
testified at the Elkhart hearing that the price of one pound had fallen
from $7,500 last summer to $4,000 last month. As recently as 2002, the Drug
Enforcement Administration pegged the street price at $16,000 to $23,000 a
pound.

Vanderburgh County is already expecting another record year. The Evansville
Courier & Press reported last week that narcotics officers had dismantled
an average of one meth lab every three days in January, on pace to exceed
Vigo County's state-high 108 lab tear-downs last year.

Vigo County, meanwhile, has launched a phone line so residents who suspect
neighbors are involved in making or selling the stimulant can leave
anonymous tips monitored by the Vigo County Drug Task Force.

Methamphetamine causes an intense rush when smoked or injected
intravenously and a sense of euphoria when used orally or sniffed. It has
been shown to damage brain cells and even cause neurological symptoms
similar to those seen in Parkinson's disease. If the dangers of ingesting
it aren't enough, its manufacture in makeshift labs that "cook" its
ingredients in an explosive stew poses extreme risk to those present and to
neighbors.

The economic implications are enormous because of its ripple effect through
criminal justice, child welfare and medical systems. There are more
arrests, more trials and more people going to prison, as well as more child
protection cases. In addition, police are struggling to find the money to
clean up meth sites, which can cost $1,000 a pop if cooking has occurred
and disposal specialists are called in. There's also the cost of fighting
fires when explosions occur, and treating human injuries.

The goal of Chowning's bill is to attack the problem "from all possible
angles," ranging from addiction treatment to public education to increasing
criminal penalties.

Remember the crack epidemic of the 1980s, which destroyed so many families
and harmed the brains of so many babies? This has the potential to be much
worse.

Neal is a teacher at St. Richard's School in Indianapolis and an adjunct
scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation.