METH DEATHS DECLINE, BUT OFFICIALS STILL VOICE CONCERN

Deaths linked to methamphetamine have dropped the last five years, but the
drug remains a concern in the county, according to a task force that
celebrated its fifth anniversary yesterday.

County supervisors created the strike force -- comprised of police, health
care workers and private groups -- in response to skyrocketing use of the
drug. In 1995, the drug turned up in more than 150 bodies investigated by
the county Medical Examiner's Office. Since then, the drug has turned up in
fewer than 125 cases annually.

Further, fewer inmates had methamphetamine in their body when arrested than
they did six years ago. Some 43 percent of inmates tested positive for the
drug during the first six months of 1995, compared to 28 percent of inmates
who tested positive for the drug in the last half of 1999, said Rob Hall, a
spokesman for the group.

But the number of arrests each year for sales or possession of
methamphetamine climbed by 11 percent between 1996 and 1999 -- the only
years that such data was available. There were 7,519 arrests linked to the
drug in 1999 compared to 6,736 arrests reported in 1996, Hall said.