A SMALL-TOWN COUNTY FACES A BIG-TIME DRUG PROBLEM

Clallam 12th In Population But Sixth In Number Of Narcotics Cases

LONGVIEW -- The faces of six women and six men -- some smiling, some sad --
cover a bulletin board in the back room of Olympic Drugs here.

There's Anaise, Tina, Gail, Deborah, Jessica and Kristina. And Barry,
Ronald, Donald, Heath, Luke and Leslie. Their Polaroid images, with names
and birth dates scrawled underneath, are kept as a reminder that they tried
to steal -- and as fodder for felony charges if they ever try it again.

It's a small part of the struggle against the illicit drug trade,
particularly in methamphetamine, that's booming in this rural county,
reaching from Mount St. Helens to the Columbia River. Most of the
shoplifters at Olympic want to steal ingredients for meth, the pharmacist
there says.

Criminal drug cases in Cowlitz County doubled in December, the most recent
month reported, underscoring the rapid growth of clandestine meth
manufacturers.

"It's rampant," says Robin Gibson, a Longview truck driver and musician.
"Crystal meth is just going nuts in this town."

Some blame the economy. Local mill cutbacks and the closing of Longview
Aluminum's smelter have hit the county hard. And selling drugs seems like
easy money.

Some also blame small-town life.

Young people in Longview turn to drugs because they're bored and see no
future for themselves, anyway, says Josh, 23, who doesn't want his full name
used because not everyone knows of his own struggle with meth.

"We've got movies here. We've got bowling. That's about it. . . . More than
anything, it (meth) is just something to do," he says. "It is an epidemic."

Whatever the reason, local law enforcement authorities and residents agree
the problem isn't subsiding, although Cowlitz County has one of the most
aggressive prosecutors in the state.

Cowlitz leads the state in taking criminal cases to trial rather than plea
bargaining, state statistics show, and unlike some counties it will
prosecute even the smallest amounts of drugs. As long as police find enough
meth, marijuana, heroin or cocaine for a lab test, "we'll charge," says Toby
Krauel, the county's chief criminal deputy prosecutor.

In December, the prosecutor's office filed 64 drug charges, about twice as
many as usual and far more than in counties of similar size, according to
state statistics.

With about 94,000 residents, Cowlitz has the 12th-largest population in the
state. But it ranked sixth in the number of drug cases that month.

The surge in filings stemmed from a growing drug problem, not from any
change in policy, Krauel says.

The drug problem spans the county, from the Longview-Kelso urban center to
the most remote rural areas, says Sheriff Bill Mahoney. Some whip up batches
of meth in cheap hotel rooms. Or deep in the woods.

Referring to Granite Falls, a small town in Snohomish County that recently
was spotlighted as a meth haven in a Rolling Stone magazine article, Mahoney
said: "Granite Falls is not unique. We have problems with kids who think
it's fun, and we have problems with adults who turn the other cheek."

Gibson, the truck driver, says he's accustomed to seeing signs of drug abuse
- -- vacant eyes, bad teeth and skin, and twitching. "The real bad ones will
twitch," he says.

While meth is the "drug of choice" in Longview these days, "I've known quite
a few musicians that have went the way of heroin," Gibson says.

Tom Golden, a Longview pharmacist, found out what heroin looks like a couple
of months ago.

He and some fellow employees were holding a shoplifter in the back of
Olympic Drugs while waiting for police to come. The man fumbled in his
pocket and, for a moment, it looked like he might pull out a gun.

Instead, said Golden, the man pulled out a syringe and squirted its brown
liquid contents all over the floor, smearing it with his shoe.

It was heroin. The man was trying to get rid of it before police arrived.

The store tries to keep heroin users out by refusing to sell syringes
without a doctor's prescription. "It seems like everybody has got a diabetic
grandmother" who needs a needle, Golden said.

But store employees can't keep out the meth makers, despite extraordinary
steps.

Recently, a new security camera system was installed.

And for months, the store has refused to sell more than one box at a time of
Sudafed or other cold medicines containing common ingredients for meth --
ephedrine, pseudophedrine or phenylpropanolamine. That's stricter than state
law, which limits each sale to three boxes.

At Olympic, anyone caught shoplifting is taken to the back room,
photographed and asked to sign a no-trespassing agreement. Anyone coming
back to steal again can be hit with felony charges, Golden said.

The most recent photos are on the bulletin board. Others are in a book.

Yesterday, Golden flipped through dozens of them, pausing when he came to a
photo of a sad-looking man named Steve. That man, Golden said, had gone to
his high school in Castle Rock and "was the starting quarterback of the
football team. . . . I looked up to him."

Golden said he was shocked that the former star athlete tried to steal
Sudafed, then sat in the back room "crying because he didn't want us to call
the cops."

Sometimes, the pharmacist said, groups of people take turns coming in and
buying Sudafed to get around the store's one-box limit.

Josh, the 23-year-old, used to hang out with groups like that. He never
made, sold or bought meth, he said, but he sure did use it.

"It was just mostly social," he said.

But it became scary. "I could have died a couple of times," he said.

He said he gave up his drug friends and his habit more than a year ago. But
last year, a State Patrol trooper pulled him over and found a plastic bag
with meth residue in his coat pocket. "I hadn't worn that jacket in a long
time" and didn't realize what was inside, he said.

"It wasn't even a line. You couldn't even get high. I don't even honestly
think there was enough to test," Josh said.

He added bitterly, "I am now a felon."

He still owes the state 160 hours of community service on top of serving 30
days in a work-release program.

"I know what I did was wrong. But when I got caught, I had been clean for
five months," Josh said.

It wasn't easy being clean. He said he still has a "taste" for the drug
sometimes.

And he can understand why so many people in Longview turn to it.

"There's no opportunities here for anybody," he said. "There's no hope
here."