LIVES CHANGED BY METH

CROSSVILLE, Tenn. Mindy Presley wants the world to know: She's trying to
follow the straight and narrow, to stay off methamphetamine, a drug she
became addicted to in 1995.

But a drug addict's best intentions are like Monopoly money; they stand for
nothing of value. Mindy admits that. She acknowledges what she's tempted to
do is go to places she doesn't need to be, meet people she wants to leave
in the past.

Presley lives a life of predictable desperation. If she didn't wrestle her
addiction, she would take meth into her body and feel the warm embrace of
the devil himself. The only thing standing in her way is the gurgling,
happy cries of her 10-month-old baby girl, Taylor.

''I can't do that to her, not again,'' she said.

Presley is 28, a beleaguered 28. Her cheeks are slightly hollow and she's a
lean woman, if not a vision of good health, at least someone who appears to
be on the rebound. A native of Crossville, she comes from a middle-class
family that wasn't religious but nevertheless stressed virtues and values.
She knew right from wrong.

Years after her addiction began, she still analyzes her attraction to drugs.

''I don't know why I became an addict, I just did,'' she said.

In seventh grade she started smoking marijuana. By 19 or 20 she advanced to
cocaine.

''I'd work all week to make $400 and spend it all on payday. I can remember
getting paid on a Friday and not having enough money to buy cigarettes on
Saturday,'' she said.

Presley was introduced to crystal methamphetamine in 1995 by a friend. ''I
remember her telling me, 'Don't do this like you would cocaine,' '' she said.

She poured a line, drug parlance for forming a narrow column of the drug on
a flat surface. She held a straw to a nostril and inhaled. Her sinus
passages stung as if prickly nettles had been forced into them, but nothing
happened, not like the immediate rush of cocaine.

So the woman snorted another line of meth. Suddenly, a euphoric wave
propelled her mind and body into hyper-drive.

''I didn't sleep for two days. I thought, 'Man, this is some bad stuff,' ''
she remembered.

While she continued her cocaine habit, she also began using crystal meth
more and more. It seemed to be the perfect drug, cheaper than cocaine and
''you could stay wired for days at a time.''

During one binge in 1995, the woman said, she was awake for 12 consecutive
days.

''People around me were going to work for a two-week paycheck and here I
am, haven't laid my head down to sleep,'' she recalled in a steady voice,
as if remembering someone else's memories.

''That was a real crazy time. We were on the road, running back and forth
getting crank and selling it. We'd sell so much that we'd have a big old
bag of it to ourselves.''

But the law and the abuse to her body began to catch up. She went to jail
for a short time. Then, at 24, she had a heart attack. Later, her gall
bladder was removed. Both problems, doctors told her, were precipitated by
drug use.

Presley's weight depended on whether she was bingeing. At one time she
weighed only 87 pounds, down a third from her normal weight. Her closet was
divided into clothes she could wear while bingeing and clothes for other days.

''I remember that, real well. I'd be in a size 9 and then after a few days
on crank, I'd be in a 6,'' she said.

She has been admitted to a drug treatment center three times, each for a
two-week stay. Her initial session, in 1996, marked the first time since
seventh grade that she had totally withdrawn from any kind of drug use.

''The meth was killing me, tearing apart my heart, my body, my mind.''

Yet, she couldn't stay off the drug.

For 18 months before the birth of her daughter, she said, she was clean,
but ''then I went back to my old ways. I took that first line and I was
into it.''

Thoughts of her baby made her pause.

Today, Presley and her daughter live with a family member. She goes to
Narcotics Anonymous meetings at least three times a week. She calls a
fellow NA member for support, sometimes on a daily basis. ''They know if
I'm calling, then I'm about to do something I shouldn't be doing.

''I've lost so much to drugs,'' she said, reciting a list of consequences:
broken friendships, strained relationships with family, shame of being
jailed. Three of her drug-using friends are dead: one because of a heart
attack at age 36, another because he was murdered, another who died while
committing a home invasion robbery.

The last, she said, was her baby's father.

To ease her loss she speaks to sixth-graders in local schools. ''I tell
them that meth is the nastiest drug there is, the meanest of all,'' she said.

''I feel this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe there will be some
good to come out of my life.''

If she can just make it through the day.

SPARTA, Tenn. Guy Goff's introduction to meth came in the form of a body
found on a county road.

It came in September 1998, just a few days after Goff was sworn in as
sheriff of White County.

Goff knew the male victim.

''I had played ball with him and was friends with him all through school,''
said the sheriff.

''Meth was one of those things that we had studied about 10 years ago
during in-service training, but I didn't know it had come to my little
county in the way it had,'' the sheriff said.

After an investigation, Goff discovered that ''crystal meth,'' one of the
popular names for the homemade drug, was quickly becoming the most popular
drug.

''In this county a cocaine dealer would go broke,'' Goff said.

Soon after his former classmate's body was found, the sheriff declared a
zero tolerance policy on meth.

''A large quantity to me is a grain of salt,'' he said.

Deputies and investigators received methamphetamine interdiction training.
They learned what to do if they discovered a working meth lab. Goff started
a crystal meth file, filling it with case notes, tips, telephone numbers
and newspaper articles. Today, that file is several inches thick, a
veritable history book on how one county has dealt with a drug.

''Most people just don't have any idea what we're up against with meth,''
Goff said. ''We've been executing as many search warrants as we can ever
since. We've averaged two a week and sometimes more for more than two
years. They just keep coming.''

A veteran lawman, Goff said methamphetamine is destroying many good people.
''It just breaks your heart,'' he said. ''But I'm determined to get as much
of this stuff off the streets as I can.''

The proof is in the county jail. On a recent day, the facility's daily
census revealed a population of 114 inmates, of which 94 had been arrested
for methamphetamine manufacturing and/or possession. Less than a mile away
from the jail is a new correctional facility for White County, set to open
by fall. Goff calls it ''the jail that meth built.''

''I hate to be pessimistic, but it won't take us long to fill it,'' he said
with a sigh.

The sheriff drove into the parking lot of the rural school, and the minute
he stepped into the hallway, students waved to him. This is part of his
plan to rid White County of meth addiction.

''You've got to educate the kids. You've got to teach them that this drug
called methamphetamine is dangerous,'' he said.

Several days a week he tries to eat lunch at a school. He's ingested enough
corn dogs, cheeseburgers and fries to last a lifetime, but the interaction
with the kids makes it worth his while. At a county school near several
former meth labs, he is concerned about a few kids in particular. These are
kids whose mamas or daddies, and in some cases both, are in jail on meth
charges.

Between bites of a burger and fries, Goff received an update on the kids in
question from their teacher. He is glad to hear that the kids have moved in
with relatives, an improvement in their situations.

''This drug is not just hard on the user, it's hard on their children.
They're the innocent ones. They'll tug on my elbow and say, 'Daddy smokes
funny cigarettes.' ''

Sometimes they don't have to say anything at all.

Several meth investigations have been initiated by teachers concerned about
students who smell of chemicals. ''It's not body odor, it's the smell of
the meth being cooked inside the house. It goes everywhere, into the
closets and on the clothes.

''I've seen a lot since I've been on this job,'' the sheriff said.

''But starting a drug investigation with a tip about how an elementary
student smells is about the saddest thing I've ever heard.''

CROSSVILLE, Tenn. Taska Randolph has her future mapped out: finish
college, then go to medical school to be a pediatrician.

''I've always been interested in the sciences,'' the 18-year-old said.

So were her parents. Unfortunately, their interest was applied to cook
batches of methamphetamine. Their futures are also planned. Both will soon
be in federal prisons, serving lengthy sentences for meth violations. They
may not be released in time to celebrate any of their daughter's hoped-for
academic achievements.

Randolph is accustomed to their absence. Her mom and dad would often
disappear for days at a time when they were bingeing on the drug. By
default, as the oldest child, she was in charge of her younger sister and
brother.

''I did a lot of the cooking and cleaning and buying groceries. When my
parents came back they would sleep for a day and a half. Then everything
would be fine for a couple of days. Then they would be gone again,'' she
recalled.

Randolph, who speaks to church and civic groups about her experiences
growing up in a home with meth addicts, agreed to tell her story with the
condition that neither her parents nor her siblings would be identified.

Meth addiction and parenting are not complementary. Often, educators expect
children raised in such an environment to fare poorly in school. Randolph
is an exception. She graduated with honors from Cumberland County High
School in 2000 and has a 4.0 grade-point average after three semesters at
the Crossville campus of Roane State Community College.

''I think my desire just to become something, that pretty much kept me
going. I wanted a different life. I would have rather been at school than
have been at home anyway,'' said Randolph, a petite, blue-eyed young woman
with a model's smile.

As long as the young woman can remember, drugs were the linchpins of her
parent's life. High school dropouts who married when they were still
teen-agers, Randolph's mother and father began smoking marijuana while each
was in junior high.

''They grew a lot of the marijuana at the house. Some of it was in other
places and we'd drive to it. We would be with them most of the time,'' she
said.

Most families have secrets. When Randolph was a little girl it was: ''Don't
tell anyone about the patch of tall green plants.''

Later, the secret became ''don't tell anyone what goes on in the work
room'' connected to the family's Crossville home. That was where her
parents did their ''cooking.''

She was 16 when meth became her parents' drug of choice. Randolph noticed
an immediate change. Before meth, her mom often worked, usually holding on
to a job for a year before changing to a different one. Her dad, a tree
surgeon, owned his own business, but as drugs consumed his life, he skipped
from job to job.

''When both of them got into meth, neither worked. They started making it
and selling it. There were always strange people hanging around,'' she said.

As they delved deeper into the surreal world of drug buyers and users,
Randolph said, her parents were extremely paranoid. Her father installed
security cameras, afraid someone would steal his stash of dope or sneak up
on him while he was making a fresh batch.

Until her parents' meth addiction, Randolph tried to maintain a semblance
of normalcy in her life by staying with friends, many of whom did not know
her turmoil at home. In junior high she was a cheerleader, a venture
financed by savings from baby sitting. She might have been a cheerleader in
high school, but she couldn't afford it. Instead she became a medical
trainer for the Jets, her school's football team.

Unwilling to accept her parents' drug abuse any longer, Randolph secretly
moved in with her pastor's family during the summer of 1999. She had been
attending the church since junior high, and the pastor and his wife gained
her confidence.

''It's kind of like I took a little bit of stuff at a time with me and (my
parents) just assumed I was staying with friends,'' she said.

While she enjoyed the uncomplicated pace of a drug-free home, she was
disturbed that her sister and brother were still with her parents. ''My
sister told me that as soon as she turned 16 she was moving out, too,
because then we could both take care of our brother.''

Randolph was on her way to see her siblings the day drug agents arrested
her mom in August 2000. Her father was charged five months later.

Randolph maintains a relationship with her mother, whom she believes has
changed for the better by way of a religious conversion. ''We write
constantly. I see a huge difference,'' she said.

She's talked to her dad once, on his birthday. There wasn't much to say.

After her parents' arrests, Randolph's pastor and his wife became her legal
guardians, while custody of her brother and sister was transferred to an
aunt. The siblings still see one another often. Recently Randolph took them
to Florida for a few days to celebrate the end of school.

The young woman now lives in an apartment of her own and works 43 hours a
week at a restaurant while tackling a full academic load in college.

She sometimes wonders if addiction will one day overpower her, just as it
destroyed her parents.

''I worry about that. I've talked with my sister and brother and they
worry, too, but then I realize that all three of us must be blessed to have
gotten through what we did. I realize God was watching out for us.

''We were fortunate.''

Sunday: DAY 1
Nightmare called meth leaves small towns reeling (08/26/01)

Monday: DAY 2
Lives changed by meth (08/27/01)

Tuesday: DAY 3
To come: Methamphetamine is produced from a process that poses numerous
environmental and safety hazards. Tenants who unknowingly rent a former
meth lab can become ill because Tennessee has no standards for meth residue.

Wednesday: DAY 4
To come: At his federal drug trial, Darryl Martin was named the Johnny
Appleseed of methamphetamine for his part in bringing the drug to Tennessee
from California. Now serving a 20-year prison term, Martin tells how he
came to know the drug and why he wishes he never had.

Thursday: DAY 5
To come: County lawmen and prosecutors say the state's drug laws need to be
revised so that methamphetamine offenses offer more jail time. Another
suggestion is to make it illegal to possess certain quantities of materials
used to make meth.