NIGHTMARE CALLED METH LEAVES SMALL TOWNS REELING

Butch Burgess thought he had seen the worst methamphetamine had to offer.

Then the sheriff saw the little boy sleeping on the floor of the deserted
chicken coop while his mother and three others labored at their makeshift
lab, cooking a new batch of the drug. The revolting sight let him know meth
had taken Cumberland County to a new low.

"They had the little fellow all wrapped up in a blanket, sleeping there
right near the lab," said Burgess, whose department has closed so many
clandestine meth labs that he stopped keeping a running tally when the
total topped 50.

This is the end of the crystal meth rainbow, noted the sheriff.

"You're in a chicken coop making drugs while your baby sleeps. It doesn't
get worse."

About 80 miles east of Nashville, the earth rises in a geological formation
called the Cumberland Plateau, a table of high ground that bisects the state.

According to Census 2000, about 324,000 people live on the Plateau,
approximately the same number that live in the suburban counties of
Rutherford and Wilson. The region's population is spread across 14
counties, a northeast-to-southwest corridor that is roughly 50 miles wide
and 130 miles long.

Within this region there is an abundance of natural beauty-including the
state's most popular state park, Fall Creek Falls. The region's largest
municipalities, Crossville and Cookeville, are often named among the most
livable small towns in the country. Although progress here has come through
better roads and more industry, the area remains primarily rural, a
patchwork of farms and forests.

It is in this unlikely place that methamphetamine, a homemade stimulant
with a high as potent as cocaine but cheaper, has become king. According to
everyone on the front lines of this drug war, the problem has reached
epidemic proportions.

"You would think the bigger, metropolitan areas would see more of it than
we do, but it seems to have centered in the more rural areas," said Mike
Taylor of Dayton, district attorney general for the 12th Judicial District.

Once known as "speed," meth was the drug of choice of Hells Angels and
long-haul truck drivers. But in the early 1990s, enterprising users in
California began manufacturing the drug in home laboratories. Since then,
methamphetamine - known in Tennessee as "crystal meth," "crank" and "poor
man's cocaine" - has drifted eastward.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, meth's proliferation in
Tennessee began in the mid-1990s when several Californians moved to the
southern end of the Plateau. For a fee, they taught others how to transform
pseudoephedrine, a decongestant found in over-the-counter cold remedies,
into methamphetamine. Their "recipe" called for chemicals like Coleman
lantern fuel, Red Devil lye, muriatic acid, phosphorous, acetone and
iodine, all of which can be purchased from farm cooperatives, auto supply
stores and general merchandise stores such as Wal-Mart.

"If you see someone with as much Sudafed as they can put in their buggy,
then you can assume they don't have a really bad cold," said Warren County
Sheriff Jackie Matheny.

Tennessee leads the Southeast in the number of meth labs seized, according
to the National Drug Intelligence Center, a federal agency that serves as a
clearinghouse of information on illegal drug use trends.

Between January 1999 and July 2001, 1,116 labs were raided in the
Southeast. Nearly half of them, 510, were seized in Tennessee, and almost
half of that total, 245, were found on the Cumberland Plateau and in
adjacent counties, including the Sequatchie Valley.

The epicenter of the Tennessee meth wave has been the mountainous regions
of Grundy and Marion counties, and during the past four years, it has
spread like a summer brush fire north along the Plateau and into other
counties of southern Middle and East Tennessee. In the wake of this
chemical carnage, more than a thousand people have been jailed, more than
100 children have been transferred to foster care and cleanup costs are now
in the millions of dollars.

In addition, law enforcement officials on the Plateau said meth addicts
have been responsible for thousands of home burglaries, shoplifting arrests
and worthless-check charges.

They attribute dozens of home fires to inept meth "cooks" and said dozens
of assaults and eight homicides are meth-related.

"You know, we used to see a lot of car-thieving and a lot of marijuana
grown here, but you know that's just about a thing of the past. . this meth
has taken them all," said Chief Glendon Hicks of the Gruetli-Laager Police
Department in Grundy County. For the past year, Hicks' three-man police
force in this village of 1,865 has made at least one or two meth possession
and/or lab cases each week.

Hicks added with a rueful laugh, "I don't know if our drug dog has smelled
marijuana enough to remember what it is."

The speed at which methamphetamine use has transformed the Plateau's drug
culture has been quick.

At the beginning of 1995, meth was hardly on the radar scope, but in the
next 24 months, authorities said, the problem mushroomed as people learned
how to make the drug through "cooking lessons" or the Internet. Taylor said
he couldn't help but notice its increased prominence.

"It seemed the whole criminal enterprise in Grundy County shifted and moved
into the methamphetamine area. It took us by surprise," Taylor said.

"This is the tip of the iceberg. It's like draining the lake with a
bucket," said veteran prosecutor Bill Gibson of Cookeville. His office
covers seven counties in what he derisively called "the meth capital of
Tennessee."

The forces that have catapulted methamphetamine to the top of the illegal
drug heap on the Plateau are primarily economic: Crank is cheaper than
cocaine. An "eightball" of meth, about an eighth of an ounce (or 3.5 grams)
- - good for a day or two buzz - sells for about $280. The same amount of
cocaine sells for about $350, and the rush of euphoria reportedly doesn't
last half as long.

"What meth manufacturing, as we have it on the Plateau, does is cut out the
middleman," Gibson said, noting that the same kind of illegal
entrepreneurial spirit that fostered moonshiners in the 1930s and marijuana
growers in the 1970s has been applied to methamphetamine.

"It's risky, but people who are considering it don't think of it in the
same terms as trying to haul a load of cocaine from Miami."

In the Pelham Valley of Grundy County, sandwiched between Interstate 24 and
the forested mountains of the Cumberland Plateau, life was not as pastoral
as it appeared.

"Every time you turned around, it seemed like another kid was getting
hooked on methamphetamine," said Angie Burnett, who along with friend
Nadine Myers organized Citizens Against Drugs in 1999 to educate their
neighbors about the drug and to get help for those who were addicted.

"Families have been completely destroyed. It's wiped out entire generations
as far as emotional stability," added Myers.

The women moderated meetings and invited experts to speak. Some sessions
attracted about 200 people to the local elementary school. "I just never
thought something like this would happen to our little part of the world,"
Burnett said.

In the annals of crime, Glenn Ray Alcorn of Putnam County is not likely to
be immortalized in song or lore.

"He was just a small-time thug from Algood, who learned how to make
methamphetamine and was teaching others for a fee," said Steve Randall,
head of the 13th Judicial District Drug Task Force.

When Randall and his agents busted Alcorn in 1998 with a pound of crank in
his possession, they initially thought their work had stymied the meth
problem in Putnam County.

"It wasn't long before we realized that we hadn't nipped anything in the
bud," Randall said.

While Alcorn eventually received a lengthy sentence in a federal prison,
his "students" continued to make meth. Using kitchen stoves or hot plates,
these small labs are capable of cooking up several grams at a time.

"Some to sell and some to use," said Randall.

Although many meth cooks are lured by turning a $50 investment into a
return of $1,000 cash, most on the Plateau are also users. They sell enough
to buy the raw products for the next batch.

"I don't know of anybody who's getting rich," the agent said. From a
pharmacological point of view, methamphetamine is a witches' brew of
toxins. While recipes vary, all the ingredients, save one, are clearly
marked with "poison" labels. The one component that's not is the primary
ingredient, pseudoephedrine.

The challenge for the home chemist is to transform the cold medicine into
methamphetamine via processes that are risky at best, even in the hands of
trained chemists, not to mention addicts desperate for a high.

"There are half a dozen places in the sequence of events that it could all
backfire," Randall said.

"It's amazing to me that we're not finding them by the explosions and not
by investigations."

In fact, there have been numerous suspicious house fires on the Plateau in
the past two years, but authorities often can't prove they were meth labs
gone awry.

"Everybody has left before the firemen arrive," said Cumberland County
Sheriff Burgess.

"But the firefighters tell us the flames have some pretty colors."

The biggest problem is getting people to understand what the drug will do
with them. The high lasts longer, but they don't seem to know how much more
addictive it is and how it affects the brain. Meth is a hard habit to kick,
maybe the hardest drug habit of all."

- - Kendall Bryan, program manager for New Leaf Recovery Center, part of
Plateau Mental Health Center, in Cookeville.

Dianna Butler knew the man's wild-eyed look, a mixture of amused
bewilderment and primal fear. As director of emergency nursing services at
Cumberland Medical Center in Crossville, Butler recognized the signs of
methamphetamine use.

"Make it slow down," she remembered him saying.

The man had entered the valley after the mountaintop high of a multiday
meth binge, but his heart was pounding as if he were running a marathon. It
was ramming inside his chest at the unnatural rate of 240 beats per minute.

Drugs to slow the heart's potentially self-destructive power surge didn't
work. Nothing did. Eventually, the man's pounding heart slowed, but only
after a few tense hours.

"Even an 18-year-old heart can't continue to do 240 for very long. After
awhile there's going to be some damage, maybe even a blow-out. It's
happened to drug users before," Butler said

Similar scenes have played out in other Plateau emergency rooms.

"This is a health-care issue of great importance. It's one of the worst
situations I've seen in 21 years. It's an epidemic in every sense of the
word," Butler said.

"There's not a day goes by that we don't have four or five meth users in
here. One day, we had five in here at the same time. Now, if you don't
think that was interesting, then you've never been around a person who's on
it."

Methamphetamine opens a Pandora's box of physiological consequences, of
which an accelerated heart rate is only one worry.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, meth is a "powerfully
addictive stimulant that dramatically affects the central nervous system."
The drug causes the brain to release an excess of dopamine, a brain
secretion that controls the sensation of pleasure.

Under meth's influence, the drug user feels so great he or she doesn't need
to eat. Losing 25 to 30 pounds during a binge is not uncommon. Meth users
aren't much for sleeping, either. When they binge, meth addicts go without
rest for days, sometimes weeks, at a time.

If the high is a ride on the wild side, "the low is just as deep," said Dr.
Sullivan Smith, director of the emergency room at Cookeville Regional
Medical Center. For the past two years, Smith has seen a steady increase in
the number of meth addicts seeking treatment.

"Now we're up to seeing numerous patients every week. This is one of the
most addictive drugs I've ever seen," he said.

Meth affects every major organ, the physician added. One young man, not yet
30, is awaiting a transplant after meth damaged his heart.

Meth addicts often have rotting teeth because the toxins weaken the enamel,
leaving teeth vulnerable to infection. Sheriffs in Plateau counties said
it's not uncommon for arrested meth users to arrive at the jail complaining
of tooth pain.

Sores, particularly on the arms and face, are another sign of chronic
methamphetamine use

"It's like all the poison they've swallowed is coming out of their bodies
one way or another," said Sheriff Burgess.

After a binge comes the crash, when the meth addict sleeps for days at a time.

The psychological changes are the most disturbing aspect of the addiction,
Dr. Smith noted.

Methamphetamine users are often paranoid and delusional, and they
experience rapid mood swings.

"I don't know how to tell you how violent these people can be. They are
paranoid. They see things that aren't there. When they are arrested, they
are frequently armed," Smith said.

Law enforcement officials in the region have identified at least a dozen
homicides in which they believe methamphetamine use was a precipitating
factor. The earliest was in 1995 when Chris Tatrow was convicted of the
torture murder of two men in a DeKalb County mobile home. The victims,
according to testimony in the trial, were killed during a six-day meth binge.

The most recent case is that of 33-year-old Dwight Padgett of Cookeville,
who is charged with killing Matthew Eric Smith, 26, as the pair retrieved a
stash of methamphetamine. "He said he didn't really know he was going to
kill the guy until he did it," Gibson said.

In addition, Plateau authorities have resorted to physical force to subdue
meth suspects. When Warren County authorities raided a lab on Mt. Zion Road
in the spring of 1997, they exchanged gunfire with Marcus A. Caldwell, who
escaped that day only to be caught six months later in Murfreesboro in a
separate gunfight with officers there. He was later sent to federal prison
for 35 years.

But, then again, officers never know what to expect.

"We busted a guy over in Rock Island who had a meth lab. When we got there,
he wasn't around, but then he drives right up the driveway.

"He looks at me, his eyes real big, and says, 'What's going on?' He could
have taken off running when he saw us, but he'd been up for five days and
wasn't thinking right," Warren County Sheriff Matheny said.

"That's the thing about this drug. It fries your brain," Smith added.

"It's really scary. Meth use is an epidemic that has not fully developed. I
can't imagine what it's going to be like when it reaches a peak."

The 4-year-old girl had something to show the Department of Children's
Services caseworker. From beneath her shirt she withdrew a baggie
containing a half-gram of methamphetamine. "Here, my granny gave it to me,"
the youngster said innocently.

Meanwhile, the girl's grandmother was in another room being questioned by
Warren County investigators about a fight at a McMinnville pool room. After
the child's disclosure of the plastic bag, the charges took a more serious
turn for the 42-year-old grandmother: giving a controlled substance to a
minor and child neglect.

"Things like this make me fighting mad," said Sheriff Matheny. "The good
Lord gives us children to take care of. Even an old dog will lick their
puppy clean."

Sunday: DAY 1 NIGHTMARE CALLED METH LEAVES SMALL TOWNS REELING (08/26/01)
GRAPHIC: A hotbed for methamphetamine makers (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.