LA SALLE MAN SAYS HE'S AMONG THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING METH TO AREA

Editor's Note: Five inmates serving prison sentences for
methamphetamine crimes agreed to talk to the NewsTribune about meth
in the Illinois Valley. This is the last part in a four-part series.

EAST ST. LOUIS — Who brought methamphetamine into the Illinois
Valley? Brian Cain admitted he had a hand in the arrival of meth.

Cain had moved to Fairfield, a town of 5,000 located 35 miles east of
Mount Vernon, in 1998. Southern Illinois was — and is — awash with
meth and within three days of his arrival Cain was smoking it from a
makeshift container of tin foil.

I wouldn't say I was addicted (the first time), but I loved it — I
loved everything about it," said Cain, 29, currently serving a 6-year
sentence in Southwestern Illinois Correctional Center in East St. Louis.

The people in Fairfield who turned him onto meth showed him how to
manufacture the illegal stimulant in a single try.

His meth use quickly spiraled out of control, and he moved back to
Oglesby in an effort to distance himself from the drug and the people
who used it.

Though heroin remains the Illinois Valley's scourge, methamphetamine
has finally migrated to North Central Illinois from Missouri and
southern Illinois. Meth labs have popped up in recent years and while
police and prosecutors say the illegal stimulant has yet to reach
epidemic proportions, recovering addicts warn that it is as addictive
as heroin.

There wasn't much methamphetamine in the Illinois Valley area in
2000, but Cain helped change that. He noticed that north central
Illinois offered much greater access to the ingredients, including
farm chemicals, needed to produce meth than Fairfield did. Depending
on how much meth-making material he procured or stole, he could
produce up to a half ounce (14 grams) in one sitting.

Local drug users soon took note of Cain's new product, and "more and
more people were coming over wanting to try it," he said.

When the drug task force caught up with Cain in 2005 and seized 20
grams from his apartment in east La Salle, they told him that unless
he wanted to spend 40 years in prison he'd better give them the name
of the supplier who was pumping meth into the Illinois Valley. Cain
considered telling them, "Here I am."

I never intended to teach anyone how to do it and never intended to
start a meth epidemic," he emphasized, "(but) pretty much all of the
people that were with me 'cooking' are now in prison."

La Salle County prosecutors weren't as quick to link Cain to the
arrival of methamphetamine, however. Brian Towne, first assistant La
Salle County state's attorney, said Cain's complicity does not put
him in a league with Charles Bartels or Michael Munson, who were
largely responsible for the introduction of heroin and cocaine,
respectively. He may have introduced people to meth," Towne allowed,
"but that didn't create the widespread epidemic that heroin is."

Cain, for his part, insisted he did not deal meth for cash, even
though the going price in southern Illinois was a tempting $100 a
gram. He was battling a heroin addiction at the same time he was
using meth, and he typically bartered meth for heroin on the streets
of Chicago. Meth, he said, is worse than heroin, insofar as it's
easier to procure.

Cain was married during this period and he tried to quit meth when
their daughter was born in 2000. Within a year, however, a few
friends came up from Fairfield and he soon was cooking again. He left
his wife and moved to Mendota, where he cooked it every day. He
suffered from meth-related paranoia and sleep-deprived hallucinations
and was convinced authorities were following him.

Mendota police were always driving by real slow," he said. "It seemed
like I couldn't go anywhere without the DARE van soon to follow, even
on back roads.

At one time I went to the toilet and flushed about 8 grams just
because the police turned around in my driveway."

Police eventually did bust him, first in 2002 after a concerned
friend called the police in a desperate attempt to get him to quit
using. He was caught with just 1/4 gram of meth and two boxes of
Sudafed (a source of pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient), and was
later sentenced to probation.

Between the heroin and meth, his life quickly came unhinged. He and
his wife (with whom he later reunited) lost their jobs, their
apartment, and turned their children over to relatives at the
insistence of the Department of Children and Family Services. Cain
overdosed in 2003 and nearly died after rolling his car eight times
driving home from Chicago.

In the months that followed, he devoted himself to meth full time,
making semiweekly trips into the woods to cook meth out of sight and
with no one to smell the noxious chemicals downwind.

Chemical splashes burned his arms and the corrosive fumes ate holes
in his clothes. As his addiction progressed, he took to using a
syringe (a "frog" in drug parlance) to shoot 1/2 to 3/4 gram five
or more times a day. The paranoia and hallucinations worsened and he
began to see "tree people" lurking in the shadows.

I've seen all kinds of crazy things," he said. "I've seen an airplane
land, and there was no airplane. I've seen a guy throwing a baby up
in the air, and I flipped out. I'm yelling at everyone around me,
'Look what that guy's doing.' And that's what set people off. 'What
are you on? What's wrong with you?'"

Then in 2005, a neighbor noticed a chemical smell coming from his La
Salle apartment and called the authorities.

I knew they were coming," Cain said. "I knew it was going to be in
that week. I just didn't care. I was so far out of it. I was up for
17 days. You know how they say you hit bottom? Well, I was under bottom."

The task force arrived with a search warrant and a cleanup crew
wearing hazardous materials suits in case the cops found an active
meth lab inside. They found no active lab, but did recover battery
peelings and a Mountain Dew bottle fitted with a rubber hose remnants
of an inactive, portable lab — in addition to 20 grams of meth.

In a theme common to most of the NewsTribune interviews, Cain said he
was somewhat relieved to be caught, simply because he might have died
without police intervention. His weight plummeted from 160 to 110
pounds and he was suffering from "meth mouth."

I lost most of my back teeth," he said. "My teeth were all rotted
out. I didn't eat at all. There were times when I had food in my
mouth, chewed it until it was liquid, and then spit it out because I
couldn't swallow.

My arms were so nasty looking when I got arrested that (an officer)
took pictures of my arms and asked me if I knew how close I was to
death." The worst part about his arrest was admitting he openly lied
to his mother about his addiction. The night before his arrest, his
mom visited, noticed his alarming condition and asked if he was using
drugs again.

I kept telling her, 'No, Mom. I'm clean,'" Cain said. "The next
morning I got arrested. My first month in jail, she wouldn't talk to
me — and that kind of hurt."

Cain is receiving drug treatment in a minimum-security prison that
was scheduled to open a meth-only unit in July. Cain said his drug
counselors criticize him for going through the motions of his drug
treatment instead of buying in.

They've told me I'm not clean because I want to be, I'm clean because
I have to be," he said. "They say I'm 'white-knuckling it.' I keep
trying to tell them that's not how it is. I want to be clean. I'm
trying to work this program like they want me to. I've had a lot
happen over the last couple of years."

[Sidebar]

Dealing With 'Meth Mouth'

Two of the methamphetamine addicts interviewed for this series have
had teeth extracted because of methamphetamine.

Meth mouth," as dentists call it, is accelerated decay and rotting
connected to the acidic components of methamphetamine and from the
poor personal hygiene that results from being high for extended
periods. The results are often revolting; teeth can become blackened
and worn into nubs.

John Derango, a La Salle dentist who specializes in cosmetic
dentistry, said he once assisted a colleague in Iowa in trying to
help restore a meth addict's teeth. There weren't any to work with.
"Most of the teeth were at a point where they were not restorable,"
Derango recalled. "He ended up losing most of his teeth."

Derango said meth isn't as prevalent in the Illinois Valley and that
he has never personally treated a local person who admitted to meth use.

But then I look back to the days when we didn't know about meth," he
allowed, "there were a few people in here who may have had it."

Among the meth-related causes of dental and periodontal decay:

| Corrosive ingredients: Meth is manufactured from a combination of
anhydrous ammonia, lithium from batteries and starter fluid. Each
promotes tooth decay.

| Dry mouth: Production of saliva, which protects teeth from decay,
is reduced when ingesting methamphetamine.

| Poor diet: Meth addicts crave sodas with caffeine, both to
alleviate dry mouth and to enhance the drug's stimulant effects. Meth
also works as an appetite suppressant and a lack of nutrients such as
calcium doesn't help.

| Grinding and clenching: Meth raises the heartbeat and promotes
nervous behaviors. (Users may compound the problem by sucking on hard
candies or lollipops to keep grinding.)

| Burning vapors: Smoking and snorting are considered the most
harmful media for ingesting meth. Smoking meth may cause lesions in
the gums and soft tissues.

| Gum disease: Meth causes blood vessels to contract, reducing
necessary blood flow to the gums

| Poor hygiene: The drug provides a longer high (up to 12 hours) than
many other stimulants or narcotics. Meth addicts typically fail to
address their hygienic needs while under the influence.

(Sources: the American Dental Association and the Meth Awareness and
Prevention Project of South Dako