Meth's Path Of Destruction, Part 1 of 7

METH'S PATH OF DESTRUCTION TEARS THROUGH OREGON

Marion County is at the center of a drug epidemic that is harming families,
increasing crime and taxing society.

Drunk on a mountain in the heart of Oregon's timber country, Hoyt Orr
accepted his buddy's invitation to "feel better" by injecting methamphetamine.

"It was an incredible rush. I broke out into a sweat, and my whole body
vibrated," Orr, 31, said. "Like an idiot, I liked it."

Even now, more than a decade after his first hit, Orr's hands start to
sweat as he remembers the electric high. It launched him into a 10-year
blitz of methamphetamine use that ravaged his body and nearly destroyed his
life.

Orr, who resides in the Santiam Canyon timber town of Lyons, 24 miles east
of Salem, sought treatment two years ago. He weighs 155 pounds, up from the
scrawny 110 pounds he weighed when he was shooting meth.

The recovering addict feels pity for swelling ranks of "tweakers," jargon
for hyperstimulated meth users. "It was 10 years of hell for me," he said.

Methamphetamine, or "crank," has been hooking people for decades. But
illegal production and use of the highly addictive stimulant have exploded
in the last few years, spawning what some experts call America's first
rural drug epidemic.

Crank's blight extends beyond rural communities. Methamphetamine has become
a long word for misery in medium-size cities like Salem, Boise and Des Moines.

From Oregon to Iowa, government officials say meth ruins more lives,
endangers more children, drains more law enforcement resources and inflicts
more social damage than cocaine and heroin.

Part of the drug's devastating appeal is that users can whip up their own
supplies. It's a make-it-yourself narcotic, with recipes posted on the
Internet.

In our fertile Willamette Valley, meth laboratories have sprouted
everywhere from rural barns and urban apartments to motel room coffee pots
and car trunks. Even backpacks and briefcases have been used as portable labs.

Getting meth is easy. Too easy, according to drug cops who spend most of
their time fighting the blackmarket trade.

"People don't realize how big the problem is," said Lt. Dave Okada of the
Salem-based Marion Area Gang and Narcotics Enforcement Team.
"Methamphetamine is probably 80 to 90 percent of what we do now."

Across Oregon, an epidemic of addiction is creating a burgeoning class of
victims: children neglected by wasted parents; neighbors frustrated by
seedy drug houses; property owners saddled with hefty bills for lab
cleanups; residents ripped off by addicts.

Everyone pays for the meth epidemic.

Hardcore users rot like fruit left in a sack. Bodies shrivel from lack of
food and sleep. Minds reel with paranoia and hallucinations. Teeth fall out
as gums break down.

Thousands of Oregon children are living in squalor, severely neglected by
parents devoted to meth. In Marion County, half of the children shunted
into long-term foster care get plucked out of the homes of meth users.

Look closely at skyrocketing rates of property crimes in Salem and nearby
communities: Meth is the driving force. Addicts break into cars, grab
purses, forge checks and steal other people's identities, all to scrounge
more money to buy more meth.

Locally, police blame meth users for 95 percent of all property crimes,
half of all domestic violence cases, one-third of all child abuse incidents.

"Meth is clearly our No. 1 problem," said Salem Police Chief Walt Myers.
"It dominates everything we do."

Court dockets are clogged with meth-related cases.

"If there are 10 drug cases on my desk, eight or nine of them are going to
be meth cases," said Stephen Dingle, a Marion County deputy district
attorney. "It is the main fuel for the crime engine in Marion County.
There's just no doubt about it."

You pay for the epidemic in many ways: higher taxes, rising insurance
rates, pruned business profits. The bill doesn't show up in your mailbox
every month, but drug abuse costs the average taxpayer about $1,000 a year,
national studies show.

Employers pay because snorting meth in the company bathroom or going on
weekend binges cuts into employees' job attendance and productivity. It
also drives up their worker compensation claims and health care costs.
Drug-abusing employees take an estimated 10 percent bite of the profits of
Oregon businesses.

At schools, teachers are spending more classroom time dealing with
disruptive kids raised in drug-infested homes. About one in seven children
goes to school every day from a home affected by meth or other illegal drugs.

Meth crooks are jamming jails and prisons. Of the 10,600 offenders locked
up in Oregon's 13 prisons, estimates are that as many as 80 percent are
there for reasons directly related to alcohol and drug abuse. It costs
about $65 a day, or $23,725 a year, to incarcerate each inmate.

When you have to wait in line at a hospital emergency room, it may be
because a doctor is treating a meth user. More than 30 percent of all E.R.
admissions are in some way tied to drug or alcohol abuse.

Families pay for the meth epidemic because an addicted loved one spreads
misery like a virus.

"I was always waiting for the phone call saying, 'We've got your son in the
mortuary,'^" said Ted Orr, 52. "It affects the whole family, not just the
one addicted."

The former millworker never received that dreaded phone call. His son Hoyt
broke free of the drug two years ago.

Though father and son have reconciled, Ted Orr vividly remembers the way
meth acted like a corrosive acid in his family, dissolving ties of flesh
and blood.

"You go through the sympathetic stage and the begging stage," he said.
"Then it becomes a bad feeling and develops into hatred even. I literally
wanted to kill him."

Next: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1878/a04.html