AGENT OFFERS GLIMPSE INTO DRUG NIGHTMARE

Back when Tim Schultz was in high school, drug abuse education tried to
diminish the "high" that drugs offered a user, painting it as an experience
that could easily go from lark to a nightmare. That has changed.

When Schultz, a state drug agent, told a crowd of at least 60 people at
Onalaska High School about methamphetamine, he played it straight. The high
a person feels the first time using meth, he said, is unlike any other.

A person high on meth feels boundless energy and feels no need to either
sleep or eat. "We have a drug that's the American dream," he said. "There's
no better weight-loss drug out there than methamphetamine."

Meth triggers the release of dopamine, which Schultz called "the molecular
happy face." It's the brain chemical that gives a person the sensation of
pleasure.

Without chemical abuse interfering with the brain chemistry, the dopamine
is released in pleasurable situations in amounts that correspond with the
situation.

When a person uses meth, especially when it's taken by smoking it or
injecting it, the meth basically tells the brain to dump all its dopamine
at once. "Your brain is dry-heaving dopamine," Schultz said.

The dopamine levels at the peak of that first meth high are about 40,000
times higher than the levels experienced in the best natural high. And
unlike a high from marijuana that lasts a few hours or one from cocaine
that lasts 20 minutes, a meth high lasts 10 to 12 hours at first.

"Now do you know why meth is becoming so popular?" Schultz said. "That
first time is as high as you'll ever get, and you'll never get there again."

That won't stop most people from trying to get there again.

Schultz cited an addiction expert who said that of 100 people who try meth
twice by smoking or injecting, 90 will become addicts. That compares with
eight of 100 who will become alcoholics after three weeks of drinking or 14
of 100 who will become addicted to cocaine after a comparable use period.
"Everybody who uses drugs thinks they can become a recreational drug user,"
Schultz said. "There is no such thing as recreational meth use."

The problem is the methamphetamine triggers the massive dopamine release,
then doesn't allow the brain to recycle it as it normally does. Before
long, the brain can no longer make dopamine, and Schultz said it will only
recover about a third of its ability to produce dopamine and that's only
after four years of not using meth.

"You destroy your brain's ability to create dopamine," Schultz said. "Now
the only way you can feel pleasure is to use methamphetamine."

Meth users soon begin to hallucinate and experience paranoia. One meth user
Schultz talked to said that every night she would look out her window and
see police with night-vision goggles on the roof across the street giving
her the finger. Another guy thought the squirrels in his back yard were
bionic informants, with cameras implanted behind their eyes so police could
spy on him.

"I talked to a 20-year-old kid who was going to commit suicide because the
tree people wouldn't stop laughing at him," Schultz said.

Methamphetamine first hit Wisconsin in 1995, Schultz said, and has since
exploded - literally in too many cases. The meth labs used by home cookers
combine a toxic and volatile stew that includes anhydrous ammonia, acetone
and sulfuric and muriatic acid, among other ingredients.

Wisconsin should see a large drop in the number of labs - as much as 80
percent, Schultz said - thanks to restrictions on the sale of a key
ingredient: pseudoephedrine, a chemical found in common decongestants such
as Sudafed.

The problem is the home meth labs account for only about 5 percent to 10
percent of the meth consumed in Wisconsin. The rest comes from the Mexican
drug cartel. "We are not even going to see a dent in the amount of meth,"
Schultz said.

Part of the attraction of meth, Schultz said, is it's relatively
inexpensive. The less potent form, which he called Mexican light, goes for
$100 per gram, which is enough for 10 doses for a normal person. A person
in the throes of meth addiction could go through as much as 8 grams a day.

A more potent form commonly called "glass" or "shards" goes for $200 per gram.

In addition to the effects on the brain, meth use also takes its toll on
the body. Meth addicts develop rotten teeth in a condition known as "meth
mouth" because meth robs the body of calcium, decreases saliva production
and changes the pH of the mouth.

Users of meth - which also is known as "crank" and a few hundred other
nicknames - also develop sores that can become major problems because they
tend to pick at them constantly. To meth users afflicted with "crank bugs,"
it feels as if there are bugs under their skin trying to get out, and they
do whatever they can to help them get out.

The scalp is one of the most common places to feel the crank bugs, and
Schultz said one meth user he knows of peeled back his scalp with a
screwdriver and poured kerosene on his head in an attempt to kill the bugs.
It didn't work.

Coming down off a meth binge can be very dangerous. Sometimes the body just
shuts down suddenly and the user is dropped right in his tracks. Schultz
said one meth addict he heard about collapsed and slept for several days on
the floor, lying on his arm so that the circulation was cut off. He lost
the arm.

It would be one thing if meth addicts just stayed shuttered in their homes
trying to slay their bugs, but they don't. Long-time meth addicts have a
very hard time keeping a job and need an awful lot of meth to stay high, so
they turn to crime to pay for their habit. Schultz estimated that 90
percent of the crime in some Wisconsin counties can be directly attributed
to methamphetamine.

There was at least one person in the audience who had experienced
meth-related horror: Beth Massman of Holmen, whose son, Tyler Amann, took
his own life last August after coming down from a weeklong meth binge.

Massman didn't know anything about meth until after her son's death, but
Schultz told the crowd at OHS that they would be in a select minority of
fully informed citizens by the end of his 90-minute presentation. "I
guarantee you you will have more information about methamphetamine than 90
percent of the people in the country," he said.

Schultz said he gives his meth presentation about 100 times per year in an
attempt to get people - young and old - up to speed on the dangers of meth.
He will give two presentations next week to Holmen students, one at at the
middle school and one at the high school.

Even if a newspaper article could touch on every aspect of Schultz's talk,
it still wouldn't have the power of his presentation, thanks to his use of
graphic, disturbing images.

Schultz shows a series of before and after pictures of meth addicts, and he
shows images of people, including children, killed or scarred by meth use.
He usually tones it down for younger audiences, but the scary graphic
images have a way of getting his message across that can't be done talking
about brain chemicals.

"Kids don't remember the dopamine, but they remember the graphic stuff," he
said.

It's important for as many people as possible to be informed about the meth
menace, Schultz said, because it's not something the police can handle alone.

"This isn't a law enforcement problem," Schultz said. "This is a community
problem."