THE NEW CRACK COCAINE?

ARCADIA -- Methamphetamine.

It is a drug that has become a serious problem in DeSoto County over
the last decade.

At a DeSoto Sun round table Tuesday, local law enforcement, health
and education officials explored some of the aspects of the devastating drug.

Arcadia City Marshal Charles Lee described the drug: "Methamphetamine
- -- or 'meth' as it's called -- is a 'designer drug' made from
ephedrine and pseudoephedrine and a lot of other store-bought items."

Methamphetamine has effects similar to crack cocaine except that it's
easier and cheaper to mass produce than most other drugs -- and it's
highly addictive," Lee said.

Craig Aument, special operations officer for the DeSoto County
Sheriff's Office, said that the current sale price for street-bought
methamphetamine is about $900 to $1,200 per ounce. "But you could
make it yourself for about $200 to $300 per ounce."

Methamphetamine made its way to DeSoto County only recently.

"We started seeing methamphetamine in DeSoto County about 1994," Aument said.

"Meth is an upper," Marshal Lee said. "It gives you a lot of energy,
it makes you feel euphoric. The energy it gives you usually lasts a
day or two. It makes you feel an immediate euphoria and it lasts
longer than crack cocaine. Meth often begins with a recreational use,
but it is so addictive that once you try it, you are highly likely to
become addicted."

Retired school teacher Charlotte Carter noted that statistics
indicate meth use with some people starts sometimes as early as
elementary school.

But the drug problem is not restricted to young people.

"There may be a couple of people out there that might take meth to
lose some weight and there might be some truck drivers who have used
it since forever," said Assistant State Attorney Lon Arend, who often
prosecutes cases involving methamphetamine. He estimated that 75
percent of his case load is related to methamphetamine use in some
way, often through robberies and burglaries by those trying to get
money for the drug.

"But it appears to me, from what we see at the courthouse, that most
of the people using meth here in DeSoto County are recreational drug
users. They're sitting down to party like they were going to drink
beer and get drunk. The danger of this drug is that it is so
addictive that you might sit down with your friends and say 'hey, try
this, you're going to get high, it's going to be great.'"

"There is a Web site called Faces of Meth," said Penny Kurtz, nursing
director for the DeSoto County Health Department. "It's something I
used with my own children to show the effects on people who take this
drug. It's very provoking to see those images."

The same images are to be seen in DeSoto County, Keen noted.

"If you really want to get heart-broken, drive around in some of
these areas where we have problems," he said. "You see the girls that
had so much going for them -- formerly beautiful young ladies -- that
now you wouldn't recognize, that are down there not for honorable
purposes, because they are hooked on meth and will do whatever they
have to do to get it."

But methamphetamine is not yet the biggest problem drug in DeSoto County.

"Arcadia's biggest problem is still crack cocaine," said Lee. "In the
African American community the biggest problem is not meth. It's
still crack cocaine. The Hispanic and Caucasian communities are where
meth is prevalent."

This doesn't mean that meth isn't becoming an increasing problem in DeSoto.

"I would say that our problem in the county is going to be closer to
50-50, crack cocaine and meth," Aument said.

Methamphetamine is known to be highly addictive.

"Very few meth users have successfully beat the addiction on their
own," Aument said. "I've heard of some people that have done it. But
with meth, I could probably count on my hand the number. I'm not
saying you can't be successful, but the numbers are low."

The cost of the campaign against methamphetamines will be expensive.

"One thing we always hear from government is the cost of treatment,"
said DeSoto County School Superintendent Adrian Cline. "But if we're
going to get it to work, it can't be a short, sweet stay, and I can
only imagine what a long-term treatment program would cost. But if we
start attacking this problem early, we're going to have, eventually,
fewer users that will have to go into long-term treatment."

Arend said, "I think a lot of people would be surprised at how many
people I will offer treatment to or straight prison time, how many
choose the prison time."

"A reason for that is because prison is easy," said Samuel Morgan,
president of the DeSoto County National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People. "If I go to prison, I can get a place
to sleep, I get three meals a day and I don't really have to do
anything. Prison ought to be a place where you would never want to go
back again."

Aument said that treatment of meth addiction would be a daunting
task. "We're hearing from treatment centers that where on crack
cocaine, you may be able to work with somebody in a three-to
six-month period and help them wean away and get over the craving for
that drug," he said, "meth is not so quick.

"Putting them in that three to six months treatment is not as
successful because they are not actually getting past that period of
time that the body craves that euphoric feeling. That is something
that is going to have to be dealt with at both treatment centers and
even the judicial system, because if we don't take the steps to get
them past that, we're not going to be successful with treatment."

Sharon Goodman, Arcadia councilwoman and director of the DeSoto Early
Childhood Center, said much of the responsibility for rescuing young
people from meth belongs to society.

"One of the things that we do in our society is tell young girls that
in order to be accepted, to be attractive, you have to be a certain
weight and if you're not that certain weight, you're not in," Goodman
said. "We see young folks doing all kinds of things to try and get to
look like that number-10 model on TV. And here's another drug that's
saying, OK, if you want to be a 10, and look this way and feel good
while you're getting there, here's meth.

"Our society has to start in the early years with children and build
their self esteem and tell them that they are okay just as they are."

Morgan agreed.

"We make things look so attractive, including drugs and food and
other things and kids see that. They sit there and look at TV and see
all these things going on and it's okay because it's on TV. This
adult takes it, so it must be OK. We have to do a better job -- at
home and in the schools -- of teaching kids the difference between an
ad and the real world. Because ads take over our society. Everything
is based on making things look beautiful. And, as you said, nobody
says what happens on the other side."

"I see a lot of folks who are not feeling good about who they are,"
Goodman said. "'Oh, I've had a bad day, or I've had a bad situation,
so to escape from it I'm going to take this to make me feel better.'
We have got to -- from early childhood on up through post secondary
- -- let people know that some days things are not going to go just the
way you want it to go. You have to face it head on. You can't go
taking this to make you feel better, because then you're going to
have another problem."

"One important thing we have to teach kids is coping skills," said
retired teacher and coach Fred Carter. "Children have to be taught
how to handle stress; how to alleviate stress; change a negative into
a positive. The ages one to five are critical and we as parents must
do our work also."

"We live in a society of instant gratification and meth provides
that," Cline added. "It will provide you with the fastest high and
sense of euphoria that you can find."

Arend made a point that methamphetamine is the rural drug of choice
and attacks the rural community in the way that crack cocaine did 20 years ago.

"When crack first came around, there were the other crimes that came
with it that you might have expected to see," he said. "Robbery,
burglary and so on. That's what brought the violence that came with
crack. I don't see that much anymore because of the ease with which
you can get crack, the quality of the crack and how cheap it is, you
don't have to do it anymore."

Arend said that over the years law enforcement and the courts worked
together and learned how to deal with crack cocaine and marijuana offenders.

"We sent them to a treatment program, which was a viable option. I
think we've had one success in all these years -- and I'm not sure
she's a success or not -- out of hundreds and hundreds -- we've
tried. And, on top of that, there used to be a time when people were
arrested who had a drug problem, they could bond out and we could
process the case. Now, if I let a person who is a methamphetamine
user out on bond, they will recommit another offense. Within days of
their release, they'll be back on meth, they will burgle another
person's house, they'll take something from somebody's car, get
arrested and put back in jail. At that point we'll have no choice but
to refuse bond."

Arend added, "In small rural communities with limited funds and
resources to combat meth, you have a problem. You're talking 30-,
40-, 50-percent increases in cases we're trying to handle with the
same resources as before. So do you let people out of the jail
knowing they're going to break into someone's house or car? Or do we
hold them in and try to do something to fix the problem? I don't
know. It's very frustrating.

"You talk about faces of meth -- many faces of meth have occurred in
our jail over the last four or five years."

For more about Faces of Meth, go to www.facesofmeth.us.