FORMER METH USERS SPREAD WORD OF RECOVERY

KINGMAN - Two Missouri authors and former drug dealers are spreading
the word of the horrors of methamphetamine.

Steve Box and Bill McLemore were in Kingman last week on a tour
visiting 17 jails and prisons - including the Mohave County Jail, the
juvenile facility and the newly built state prison off Interstate 40
southwest of Kingman.

Box and McLemore, former drug dealers and meth users, spoke with
prisoners on the dangers of meth.

The authors also spoke to several dozen people, many former drug
users, at a rally in Centennial Park in Kingman.

With local law enforcement saying more than 70 percent of all crime
in the county is meth-related, Box and McLemore relate their
experiences with the drug from the other side of the law.

Once arrested and charged with attempted murder and housed in the
Clark County jail, Box now visits jails and prisoners spreading the
word of faith and horrors of meth.

Box, 40, said he lost everything he owned, his house, his job, and
his possessions in his seven years hooked meth.

Starting with marijuana and cocaine at 14, Box graduated to meth when
he was 25.

Clean now for seven years, Box wrote three books on his experiences
on and his nearly two-year struggle to get off meth.

"How do you get off meth?" he asked. "You learn to hate it."

Box said users fall into a sick world of child molestation, child
abuse and neglect. He also spoke of babies being nailed to walls in meth homes.

McLemore, 48, started smoking marijuana at 13 years old and has been
using meth for 30 years until he quit four years ago.

A drug dealer in prison for more than five years, he even managed to
escape twice from a Kansas prison.

"Meth is the weapon of mass destruction in this country," McLemore said.

McLemore calls meth a medical nightmare with the devastating
destruction on one's body and teeth.

McLemore also said doctors, attorneys, even judges find themselves
hooked on the drug ensnaring addicts from 9 to 70 years old.

"This problem is not going away," he said. "The change has to happen
within them," he said, pointing to his heart.

McLemore said an alarming number of grandparents are raising millions
of children, whose parents are hooked on meth.

"It's the number one problem in law enforcement," McLemore said.

McLemore met Box at a speaking engagement four years ago and started
a ministry together. The pair moved to a cabin the mountains of
Missouri to write their books together.

Now they travel together wherever they are needed, talking to inmates
and reformed drug users relating their experiences in and out of
prison and hooked on meth.

Many times they hand out their faith-based books to inmates.