Meth's Path Of Destruction, Part 2 of 7

RURAL POPULARITY MAKES METH TREATMENT DIFFICULT

Holed up in her bathroom, Sandra Edzards shut out everything except daily
injections of methamphetamines.

Treating her body like a dart board, she wore out veins from her toes to
her neck.

"It took so long to find a vein, I stayed in the bathroom most of the
time," said Edzards, 50, of Salem.

In a methamphetamine fog, Edzards contracted Hepatitis C from a
contaminated needle, neglected her two children, prostituted herself and
went to prison for bank robbery.

Edzards sought treatment and kicked her addiction two years ago. But she
admits she still craves meth.

"It takes control of your mind, body and soul. It just eats away at
everything," she said.

Government officials now consider methamphetamine the fastest-growing
illegal drug in this country. An estimated 5 million Americans have taken
meth, and as many as 2 million are regular users.

The drug is most popular — and destructive — in central California's
agricultural region, the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest, according to
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

"It's predominantly a rural epidemic, and we've never had one of those in
the United States," said Dr. Alex Stalcup, a meth expert and treatment
specialist in Concord, Calif.

Combatting the epidemic poses a daunting task, in part, because drug
treatment programs generally are tailored to help urban addicts, not those
living in rural areas or even medium-sized cities, Stalcup said.

"One of the treacheries of this business is almost all systems of drug
treatment delivery are based on urban models," he said. "If you look at
Oregon's own statistics, the characteristics of the meth epidemic are very
different in Portland than in Douglas County. The way it's used, how it's
used, the population using and the length of using are different."

Users are mostly white, ages 18 to 35, working class or unemployed. People
get into meth for different reasons: to suppress appetite and lose weight,
to boost energy for work or partying, to alter or escape from reality.

Meth is cheap and delivers a long-lasting high. A $40 purchase buys a 6- to
12-hour buzz, compared with 30 minutes or less for a line of cocaine.

Cynthia Duran said she snorted meth in her work cubicle as a switchboard
operator for a state agency in Salem. As she moved on to other jobs, the
drug made her feel like a valuable worker.

"When you're high, you can just keep going and going and going," she said.
"When 5 o'clock comes, you want to keep working until 7, just so you can be
doing something. Employers don't even realize it's a problem."

Duran graduated from weekend user to everyday abuser. She became a thief
and meth peddler to support her habit.

Now locked up at the Oregon Women's Correctional Center, the 30-year-old
Salem mother of five is serving a 34-month sentence for selling and
possessing meth, plus theft and forgery.

Behind prison walls, she talked about how she sold meth like fast food at
local apartments. "It was like a drive-through for drugs," Duran said. "I
didn't have to go anywhere. Somebody was always knocking on my door."

As users demand more meth, big and small manufacturing labs keep churning
out abundant supplies. Oregon law enforcement officials are busting record
numbers of meth-making labs, even as a profusion of small, portable labs
makes it increasingly difficult to ferret out moving targets.

Nationally, Oregon ranked seventh last year in meth lab seizures, surpassed
only by California, Washington, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Last year, 212 meth labs were seized statewide, a tenfold increase from the
20 labs seized in 1990, and more than double the 104 labs found in 1997.

As of Oct. 11, 234 labs were discovered this year, surpassing last year's
total.

Meth-related deaths also soared during the last decade. Ten years ago,
Oregon recorded one fatality. Last year's toll: 56 lives, up from 43 the
year before.

"We're talking about people being involved in crazy activities because
they're on methamphetamine," said Dr. Karen Gunson, the state medical
examiner. "Driving strangely. Jumping off buildings. Falling in front of
cars. Jumping in front of trains. Just a whole bunch of crazy things people
don't normally do."

Heroin remains the state's deadliest drug, with 130 deaths last year,
mostly in Eugene and the Portland metropolitan area. By consensus, though,
meth cuts a broader swath of destruction, according to public health officials.

"It's just so devastating socially," Gunson said. "These people don't take
care of their kids. They don't take care of their properties. They don't
take care of themselves."

Daily binges took Edzards to the brink of madness. She hallucinated during
her meth sprees, imagining bugs crawling on her skin. Suicide became a
recurring temptation.

"You enter into a world that is demon-filled," she said.

Next: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1878/a05.html