CRANKS: IT'S DEADLY, AND IT'S EVERYWHERE

MCALESTER, Okla. - Mike Murray hocked his son's Nintendo to get more money
for methamphetamine.

Clay Carter lost everything owned to the drug, also known as crank, He went
through two marriages and became a stranger to his two daughters.

Angela Garcia got hooked after a friend: wedding. She was drunk, passed out
and late for the reception - and another bridesmaid offered a snort to wake
her up.

A sign on the main drag into town proclaims that McAlester is the "Home of
Cowboys and Italians." But to some it has another reputation - as the crank
capital of eastern Oklahoma.

Other communities are confronting similar problems. From Hawaii to the
heartland, the drug is taking a heavy toll. Methamphetamine has become the
third deadliest drug being used in California, after crack cocaine and
heroin, according to the National Institute on DrugAbuse.

The means of getting high vary: Crank can he be injected, ingested, smoked
or snorted like cocaine.

Decades ago, methamphetamine was the drug of choice for bikers, who used it
to get high, and truck drivers, who used it to stay awake.

Today, it attracts a wide population including blue-collar workers,
homemakers, college students, suburban teenagers, the rural underemployed
and upscale nightclub crowds. People working extra jobs use it as some
truckers traditionally have, to get an energy boost and overcome fatigue.

Domestic Violence

It contributes to domestic violence and broken marriages. Families lose
breadwinners and end up on welfare. Children whose parents are addicts
often land in foster care. Babies of addicts start their lives with serious
health problems.

Many users suffer physically, and some die. Extreme weight loss is not
uncommon. Some abusers are covered with skin gouges where they have tried
to scratch away imaginary "crank bugs." Researchers say that chronic use
leads to irritability, paranoia and violent tendencies.

In McAlester, Pittsburg County Sheriff Bennie Durant speculates that most
of the prisoners in his jail are users. Carter, Murray and Garcia recently
were among them. He estimates that more than 80 percent of the crimes
committed in the county are related to methamphetamine.

'They're stealing to get it, or beating their wives" while under its
influence, said Durant, a retired troop commander with the Oklahoma Highway
Patrol. "A dirty needle's no deterrent. There's no fear of being arrested
or going to prison for life. We've got teenage girls living with older drug
dealers and having children by them. "

Julio Mercado of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas field
division sees a problem that is sweeping the nation. "It's an easy product
to make and very cheap," he said. "This is a big business."

In Hawaii, more patients are admitted into state treatment programs for
methamphetamine abuse than any other drug - including alcohol. Even in
Utah, a state with a strong reputation for conservative values,
methamphetamine has become common.

Playing Catch-Up

"This thing hit us with a ferocious bang," said DEA agent Don Mendrala, who
is based in Salt Lake City. Part of the problem, he added, is that Utah
seemed to many an unlikely area for a drug problem that exploded about two
years ago - and law enforcement is "trying to play catch-up."

In 1995, the Oklahoma Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control Bureau reported
raids on 34 labs producing methamphetamine. In 1997, it shut down 241 labs.
"Marijuana is the summer problem, but methamphetamine is neck and neck,"
said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the bureau. "Speed and weed, that's
what we see most of."

In Missouri, three labs were raided in 1992. By 1997, that number had grown
to 459.

Jim Ferguson, a substance abuse counselor in Lubbock, Texas, said that his
area had a large number of meth users for many years, and that he had
witnessed a "steady growth period."

Ferguson said the low cost and relatively lengthy high

that users could get from methamphetamine contributed to its popularity. "A
lot of people in the lower middle-class tend to like it," he said. "They
don't have the financial resources to get high continuously on cocaine."

In December, in the largest assault on methamphetamine dealers to date,
more than 100 suspects accused of being part of a distribution ring were
arrested in Texas, in several Los Angeles suburbs and in North Carolina.

Although much of the drug is manufactured in Mexico and smuggled into the
United States, ingredients for crank can be found in any grocery store or
pharmacy. Over-the-counter cold remedies and diet pills that contain
ephedrine or pseudo-ephedrine can he easily transformed into
methamphetamine.

Local and federal officials are trying to combat the growing meth problem
with laws designed to restrict the availability of chemicals and limit the
purchase of over-the-counter drugs that can be used to make
methaniphetanuine. Amendments to federal sentencing guidelines that
significantly increased penalties for trafficking in methamphetamine and
"precursor" chemicals, recommended by the U. S. Sentencing Commission, went
into effect in November.

Corporations and law enforcement agencies are working to reduce the
availability of over-the-counter products that contain key methamphetamine
ingredients. In April, WalMart and the DEA announced that the retail chain
would restrict large-scale purchases of allergy, cold and diet pills that
had been diverted to crank production.

Warner-Lambert Co., which makes Sudafed nasal decongestant, is developing
additives that will make it "difficult, if not impossible," to extract
methamphetamine, said Jeff Baum, a company spokesman.

Making methamphetamine creates toxic and volatile gases and chemicals so
dangerous that drug agents often must wear breathing equipment and
bio-hazard suits when raiding the illegal labs. A 3-year-old boy apparently
was killed in September by toxic

es from a lab in his mother's Phoenix apartment. Several would-be
manufacturers have been killed in recent years.

Environmental Damage

The environment is another victim. Toxic chemicals in remote locations are
simply dumped onto the ground or poured into creeks or rivers. "It's
costing anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 to clean up a lab, even the'mom and
pop' labs that produce a small quantity," said Mercado.

Particularly worrisome to law enforcement is the violence that is often
associated with the drug. Toxicology tests found a high level of
methamphetamine in the bloodstream of Matthaeus Jaelinig, a white
supremacist who killed a Denver police officer and then shot himself in
November after a gun battle.

Eric Starr Smith stabbed his 14-year-old son repeatedly and decapitated him
in 1995 while under the influence of methamphetamine. Starr then threw the
head out of his van along a New Mexico highway. His younger son later told
investigators that his father had become agitated after running out of
drugs.

The Tucson area has seen an increase in sexual assaults of teenage victims
by individuals under the influence of methamphetamine and experienced "a
real surge in child abuse cases about a year and a half ago," said Deputy
Pima County Attorney Kathleen Mayer.

Shirley Armstead, an agent with the DEAs St. Louis office, said that the
Midwest had seen a disturbing increase in domestic violence, and that meth
was a factor. "In Iowa, violence related to methamphetamine just went
through the ceiling," she said.

In McAlester, Durant said crank-fueled violence and crime were threatening
what he described as basically a good community. When he was young, he
said, there might be a few drunks behind bars on any given weekend. Now,
almost 3,000 prisoners pass through the county jail in a year. He has six
deputies to patrol more than 1,450 square miles.

He's trying a different approach.

Every Tuesday evening, the sheriff has arranged for juvenile drug offenders
to meet in a small classroom with young adult methamphetamine addicts from
the jail. Most have only smoked marijuana, but a few admit to trying meth.
Durant hopes that at least some of the youths will listen.

"If you wait until they get on crank, only one in 10 has a chance of being
rehabilitated," he said. `You never get off of it. The real answer to our
crime problem is keeping them from ever getting on crank."