METH'S DAMAGE IS TRAGIC SIGHT AT 'GROUND ZERO'

He was emaciated, sitting there in the school office. Fourteen years old,
and the boy couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate, couldn't sit still.
Methamphetamine had burned the lining of his nostrils.

He might have been the first hard-core crank user Kittie Weston-Knauer ever
saw. And in his vacant eyes, the seasoned school principal got a glimpse of
the scourge to come.

"If this is what this drug does to people," she remembers thinking, "Lord
help us when the masses get hold of it."

That was four years ago.

By now, a third of the 354 students at Casady Alternative High School in
Des Moines have experimented with methamphetamine or are somehow involved
in its sale or production, Weston-Knauer estimates. Some of the users get
it from parents; most get it from friends and dealers. Next to marijuana
and alcohol, perennial favorites among Iowa teens, it has become Casady's
drug of choice.

The number of schools like Casady tripled to 74 in Iowa during the past
decade, largely because a growing number of students have become violent
and disruptive. About 6,600 youths now attend such schools, several of
which are scattered in such central-Iowa towns as Grimes, Altoona, Perry,
Indianola, Newton, Knoxville, Marshalltown and Boone. Des Moines has two;
West Des Moines one.

Their students have troubled home lives, learning disabilities, sometimes
children of their own. Some struggle with periods of homelessness or are
habitually tardy or absent. Many experiment with drugs. Weston-Knauer says
that 95 percent would be a low estimate in a tally of those who drink.

With so many obstacles before them, it is no wonder Casady students often
reflect those hardest hit by the state's meth epidemic. While the drug has
taxed the resources of schools statewide, it is here, in an aging
inner-city Des Moines school building, where its effects can be felt most
starkly.

"We are," Weston-Knauer said, "at ground zero for at-risk kids."

While on-campus drug busts typically lead to a move for automatic
expulsion, the school principal is not naive enough to think deals do not
go down in school. Crank is available many places - football games, pool
halls, outside convenience stores, from the windows of passing cars. Most
afternoons, those who indulge can score on a street corner a few blocks
away or at a friend's home.

The small-time dealers readily make themselves known.

"Meth's all they talk about," said Amanda Gamblin, 17. "They say, "I work
on the street." That"s pretty much how you know."

Users, also ubiquitous, are even more obvious.

"Livin' Raggedy"

"Meth is it" for these people, Gamblin said. "All they worry about is
getting high. They're all broke down, livin" raggedy."

In her old neighborhood near 22nd Street and Forest Avenue, Gamblin
regularly dodged addicts and dealers. One woman, she said, offered her and
a friend the rings off her fingers for crank money.

Experiences like that - firsthand dealings with the pathetic nature of the
drug users - are what keep a lot of students from using meth. Some have
parents, friends or siblings wrapped up in meth life; others have learned
the hard way.

Sixteen-year-old Mandi Stone, one of several young mothers at Casady, says
she started using crank when she temporarily lost custody of 2-year-old son
Christopher, a hemophiliac, for denial of critical care. Friends offered
her meth, and it dulled the emotional pain.

"It was a big ol" rush," she said of that first time. "I wanted more. I
haven't stopped wanting more since."

Stone says the drug gave her boundless energy. She spent her rent money on
drugs and eventually turned friends on. Her heart beat like a tom-tom day
and night, she lost weight and, eventually, she began to look the part of
the hard-core user. Losing her son became a probability.

One day, she was caught stealing $1,000 worth of clothes at a store. Two
weeks into her probation, she failed another drug test.

"I turned myself in at 9 p.m. Aug. 4," she said. She admits that probably
saved her life.

Weston-Knauer says that in her five years as principal at Casady, she has
seen all kinds of students succumb to meth. Rural kids. South-of-Grand
types. Teens who flop from place to place.

"It's clearly up," she said. "This year alone, use or distribution of meth
increased by about 50 percent. Last year, too, we saw a marked increase.
Four years ago, we had two, maybe three students who were users."

She says it's almost impossible to teach them when they're using meth.

"They're just hyper. They talk extremely fast, nonsensical. They can't
concentrate.

"They'll tell you it makes them work better, but that is not true.
There's no logic to their thinking, but of course if you burn your brains
out, you cannot think logically."

Some "meth heads" will stay up Sunday and Monday, and sleep all day
Tuesday. By Wednesday, they're back in class, zoned and lethargic.

The ones who are the worst off binge on junk food, if they eat at all.
Clothes hang from their bodies. Pockmarks riddle their skin.

Casady has on-campus drug counseling and a health clinic - help available
for the asking. But while students talk openly about drinking and smoking
pot, meth users typically fear admitting their habit.

Always a Struggle

For Stone, who has been clean for more than three months, breaking free has
been a constant struggle.

"I feel like I'm still at risk," she said. "I still can't be around people
who use."

Reunited with her son, she now lives at a Des Moines home that offers
programs for substance-abusing mothers and says she is grateful for the
second chance.

In time, she says, meth would have destroyed everything she held dear.

"I was going that way," she said. "But, with the grace of God, I didn't get
that far."