Part 1: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a01.html

Part 2: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a02.html

Part 3: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n021.a03.html

Part 4: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n023.a01.html

Part 5: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a02.html

Part 6: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a01.html

Part 7: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n022.a03.html

SACRIFICING LIVES FOR THE LOVE OF METH

Many people sacrifice their lives at the altar of meth.

It's so fierce a stimulant that, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas
Whalley says, it "ruins lives."

"Most of the other drugs, the dealers don't use," Whalley observes.
"This is an insane drug. It makes people insane." At the federal
level, most of the energy of the nine drug prosecutors in Western
Washington is devoted to larger manufacturing cases.

Since the King County prosecutor's office doesn't categorize the
charges it files by type of illegal drug, anecdotes drive the
information available about who is prosecuted, for what specific
crimes and how long the sentences run. Here cocaine and heroin appear
to prevail.

In the Pierce County courthouse, Anne Masterson, an assistant county
prosecutor assigned to the drug unit, doesn't have to deal in
anecdotes; she deals in numbers.

Working in the state's meth capital, Masterson knows by the weight of
her workload that the majority of her drug cases involve meth. Phil
Sorenson, who files the cases that Masterson prosecutes, charged two a
year in 1994. Now he files two a day.

Prosecutors like Masterson, Sorenson and Whalley believe that using
meth invariably leads to making it, in part because its ingredients
can be so easily purchased.

"The term meth lab is a broad brush for a lot of things," Sorenson
said, underscoring that meth can be made virtually anywhere.
Masterson's cases originate in houses, mobile homes, apartments and
all kinds of vehicles.

Five charges make up the bulk of Pierce County's meth
cases.

Simple possession. If he's lucky, a defendant can persuade a judge to
allow him to enroll in the county's drug court, which is limited to
simple possession cases. The defendant is usually given a year to
prove to the judge, through completion of substance abuse treatment
and a raft of clean urinalyses, that his charge should be forgiven.
But if the defendant flunks, the judge -- not a jury -- decides
whether he is guilty of the original charge.

Possession with the intent to deliver. Three-tenths of a gram is a
strong dose of meth, so any amount up to three or four grams could be
grist for this charge. Twenty grams is a sure indication of the intent
to deliver, Masterson said. To be charged with this offense, the
defendant might even be giving meth away, as is common among friends.
Evidence to support this charge includes scales, packaging, cash, a
ledger.

Delivery. This elemental charge applies when someone has sold meth,
whether to a friend or an undercover agent.

Manufacturing meth. The police don't have to nab meth makers in the
act, which is fortunate because the manufacturing process now takes
minutes, and the finished product may be gone. But there must be a
quantifiable amount of residue left from "the cook." These cases
result from informants or police "stumbling on" meth labs, perhaps
while serving warrants for other crimes. A first-time manufacturer
could draw 51 to 68 months, Masterson said.

Possession of psuedoephedrine with the intent to manufacture meth.
Having a couple bottles of cold tablets is certainly legal but
psuedoephredrine, a common ingredient, is key to manufacturing meth by
the so-called Nazi recipe. These cases usually evolve out of traffic
stops in which police officers spy a case of bottles, Masterson said.

In sentencing, defendants are "awarded" enhancements for additional
crimes; meth users commonly have long rap sheets. Pornography and
weapons, for instance, are endemic, the former because the drug is
sometimes used as a sexual stimulant, the latter because meth users
are routinely paranoid.

Because of the havoc meth labs create in their surroundings, there's a
mandatory $3,000 fine for cleanup. Prosecutor Sorenson observed,
"Marijuana grows can ruin a room of a house but it's not going to
decimate your home."

[sidebar]

ONE PIERCE COUNTY JUDGE CONCENTRATES ON REDUCING DRUG
USE

The middle-aged white man in the tan work clothes was in a heap of
trouble, and he knew it. He had used methamphetamine within two weeks
of completing court-ordered in-patient treatment.

To his right, the prosecutor didn't mince words. The defendant had
"stumbled badly" and "pretty much burned his bridges here."

To his left the public defender could only slightly mitigate the
situation at hand. The defendant, he said, had gone 10 months without
one dirty drug test. Besides, he "really wanted" to remain in the program.

The third voice came from the Pierce County Drug Court's liaison for
drug treatment. "We've given him every chance," she said, recommending
he be discharged to face his meth possession charge head-on.

Nothing was going well for the defendant, who mumbled a few words
about the stress of being behind in his bills. "I guess I just gave
up," he said.

But the judge wouldn't.

Not that the defendant was going to have it easy for the next little
while. "I'm disappointed because your answer to your problems was to
turn to drugs, and that's never going to be the answer," Judge Bruce
W. Cohoe told him.

If he wanted to retain the defendant in the program, what sanctions
might he impose, Cohoe wondered aloud. The prosecutor suggested a week
in jail, saying, "I think he's earned it. If he's not going to respond
to the carrot, maybe he'll respond to the stick." After the public
defender argued for two days, Cohoe settled on four, and he warned the
defendant there would be some changes made in his treatment plan.

Minutes later, while entertaining a glowing report on an
ex-prescription addict, Cohoe turned to the man who had just relapsed:
"Horst, I don't want you to lose faith -- Betty is a perfect example.
She was given another chance, and you can do that, too."

Owing to their frustration over the drug war's failure on so many
fronts, many people would lambast Cohoe for being too soft on the
defendant. They'd opine that, with all the government-paid resources
he'd been given, he had earned a discharge; a stint in jail would make
him see the light. That's a rap the state's fledgling drug courts are
accustomed to.

But the defendants Cohoe gives another chance, and sometimes yet
another, don't deal meth or other drugs, nor do they make them. They
have a very personal problem with drugs, which drug court helps
ameliorate in profound ways. Those methods -- part carrot, part stick
- -- are uncharacteristic of courtrooms where the extremes of freedom
and banishment prevail.

This approach, which gives certain drug defendants the chance to
receive treatment in lieu of incarceration, is only a decade old. It
began in Dade County, Fla., and has been replicated more than 300
times. Five years ago King County launched the first drug court in
Washington; Pierce County followed. About a dozen operate statewide,
including one run by the Makah Tribe.

Although drug courts differ in some aspects, they share this vision:
Reducing drug use and the criminal behaviors related to it; freeing up
judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys for non-drug prosecution;
concentrating within one courtroom a wealth of expertise about drugs,
and helping defendants begin anew by treating them
holistically.

Eligibility for drug court begins with the charge of possession. For
candidates to be accepted, the risk they pose to the community must be
low; they can't have any adult convictions for violent or sex
offenses. They must also demonstrate a good probability they will
rehabilitate themselves.

Not everyone facing such charges seeks out drug court; if they fail to
dot the i's and cross the t's once they are in the program, they can
be tossed out and sentenced without trial.

The rigors of the Pierce County program, run by the Pierce County
Alliance, a non-profit treatment provider, are a little militaristic,
but with ample justification. Participants are subjected to weekly and
random drug tests. They have to go to court every two weeks for the
first two months (doing well means the frequency is reduced). Besides
taking advantage of in-or out-patient treatment, they are required to
attend group and individual treatment sessions.

Participants also are screened, and receive referrals, for job
training, family counseling, anger management and other special
programs, often to treat mental illnesses.

The sanctions for backsliding can be creative, as Cohoe demonstrated.
"They can be assigned to anything depending on how badly they're
doing," the judge said. But he recalled one man who voluntarily
participated in 24 meetings in three weeks instead of the six he was
required to.

To graduate -- and have that possession charge wiped from the official
record -- participants must attain a minimum of three months of
sobriety, Cohoe said, along with knuckling under to other strictures.
Often that takes a year, sometimes longer.

Having presided over drug court off and on since 1994, Cohoe can only
shake his head at the parade of drug-abusing professionals who have
come before him -- lawyers, doctors, nurses. Many began using drugs
later in life for recreational purposes.

"The hold that drugs have on people is so great it's hard for the rest
of us to imagine it," Cohoe observed, recounting that a court reporter
began using recreationally with her husband and was eventually forced
to resign her position at the courthouse.

In Pierce County's drug court, the initial screening by the Alliance
reveals that meth is the primary drug of about 85 percent of the
participants.

King County is still relatively immune to meth, as statistics from its
drug court indicate. In 1998-99, meth was the primary drug for 11
percent of the enrollees, compared with 9 percent in 1997-98.

Cohoe initially resisted the drug court assignment; he'd rather be a
judge than a social worker. But, consistent with his belief that
"warehousing people isn't the answer," he began to relish the chance
to blend the carrot and the stick.

Sometimes he's a father figure, other times, a mentor. Both roles are
immensely valuable, he said, because "some of these people have never
had somebody of value care for them."

"Very frankly, it's the most worthwhile thing I've done in 13 years on
the bench," Cohoe said.