MALE INMATE STUDY PAINTS PICTURE OF CRIMINAL HIGH ON DRUGS OR ALCOHOL

Las Vegas participates in research aimed at profiling drug abuse among
inmate populations across America.

A new study of Clark County arrestees shows that prisoners are much the same
as those in other parts of the country:

Before their arrest, most of them had either been drinking or taking drugs.

"It's not better and not any worse than in other major cities," said
Michelle Hussong, professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas. "It's not surprising."

The report, the results of interviews and urine analyses of 217 male inmates
at the Clark County and Henderson detention centers during the first two
weeks of September, shows:

- --More than 90 percent of the arrestees tested positive for alcohol use.

- --Almost 70 percent tested positive for being under the influence of drugs.
That compares to 73 percent in San Diego in 1997, 64 percent in Phoenix, and
more than 80 percent in Chicago.

- --Four out of every 10 inmates charged with a violent crime, 34 total,
tested positive for drugs.

- --And of those 34 arrested for violent crimes 35 percent tested positive for
marijuana. In fact, two of the three people arrested on homicide charges
tested positive for marijuana.

Officer Steve Meriwether, Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said the
results seem to lend credence to the department's stand against the
legalization of marijuana. Nevada voters last month approved an initial
referendum to legalize medicinal marijuana.

"They're pressing for legalization of marijuana, yet that's the most
positive drug tested for," Meriwether said.

Hussong said she would not come to that conclusion from the data collected.

"We know alcohol and drugs doesn't cause crime, but it does make people less
inhibited," she said. "With violent crime, they don't think."

Her personal opinion, though, is that alcohol, not marijuana, is the
"gateway drug to crime."

"You never hear someone say 'I smoked too much pot and beat up my wife,' "
Hussong said.

She said marijuana remains in someone's system for as long as a month.

"So it doesn't mean that someone was stoned at the time of arrest," she
said. "They could have inhaled two or three weeks earlier."

Hussong and professor Richard McCorkle completed the first quarterly study
with the help of graduate and undergraduate students. Further studies will
expand to women and to two other Las Vegas Valley jails, the North Las Vegas
Detention Facility and the Las Vegas Municipal Detention Center.

Of 324 arrestees, 217 volunteered to participate in the study.

With the study's completion, Las Vegas joins 35 cities across the country
that are part of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, known as ADAM.

Hussong said similar reports will be completed every three months. The
budget for the program's first year, funded by the National Institute of
Justice grants, is $82,000.

The purpose of ADAM is to develop a national and local profile of drug abuse
among inmate populations.

Among the study's other findings:

- --Positive tests for illegal drugs were most common for those between 15 and
20 years of age. Nearly three-quarters, 73 percent, had positive tests.

- --Arrestees testing positive were more likely to have been arrested and
served time in the past 12 months than those who tested negative.

- --Overall drug use among blacks was higher than for whites or other races. A
little more than 36 percent of blacks arrested tested positive for cocaine
vs. 12 percent for whites and 14 percent for Hispanics; and 39 percent of
blacks arrested tested positive for marijuana vs. 27 percent for whites and
29 percent for Hispanics.

- --22 percent of white arrestees who tested positive had used methamphetamine
vs. 3 percent for blacks and 14 percent for Hispanics.

- --The total number of blacks who tested positive for drugs was 66. Of this
category, 123 were whites, 21 Hispanics and five categorized as "other."

Checked-by: Don Beck