HELP ON WAY FOR METH ADDICTS

FOREST CITY -- The Rutherford County Methamphetamine Task Force
received good news when it met Thursday afternoon.

A program called Matrix that includes the intensive treatment of meth
addicts through Western Highlands mental health management entity,
will soon be up and running in Rutherford County, said Leslie McCrory
of Western Highlands LME.

McCrory said that officials at New Vistas, the mental health company
that will administer the program, found a therapist with a master's
level degree in substance abuse treatment.

The Matrix program is 20 years old and was developed in California
where the meth problem began drawing attention in the late 1970s.

The program boosts a 50 percent success rate in California. The SBI
has estimated that only 6 percent of addicts in North Carolina
recover from their addiction due in part to a lack of treatment facilities.

Rutherford County will be one of only four counties in the state to
offer the treatment program for meth addicts along with Buncombe,
Watauga and McDowell counties.

Currently treatment options are limited and the Department of Social
Services is still seeing cases of parents who continue to test
positive for meth use.

The Matrix program is an intensive outpatient program that lasts for
a year. Patients will receive treatment for three hours a day, three
times a week for 14 weeks. Then the patients will receive treatment
once a week with the option of individual work, if need- ed.

Sheriff C. Philip Byers said that he anticipates a decrease in the
number of meth labs found in the county in 2006. Officers uncovered
two labs in January.

"The number of labs will be down but the number of people on meth
will continue to increase," said Byers.

Byers said that true "ice" from Mexico, a stronger, more potent form
of meth, will be to blame for the increase in meth addicts in the area.

The task force also agreed to share the protocol for meth lab
response with other counties.

The Sheriff's Department will soon have a drug interdiction team of
four officers who will work to bust meth trafficking operations on
the major thoroughfares in the county.

The Drug Endangered Children Response Protocol includes strategies
for how various agencies including DSS, law enforcement, county
schools, Emergency Management Services and mental health, respond to
uncovered meth labs.

Meth is a central nervous stimulant with street names like speed,
crank, ice and glass.

The use of meth can result in fatal kidney and lung disorders, brain
damage, liver damage, chronic depression, paranoia and other physical
and mental disorders, according to medical experts.

The task force was organize to included local officials from law
enforcement, education, mental health and business to create
awareness and continue a battle against a drug that is having a
devastating affect on the western part of the state.

The federal government estimates that 12 million Americans have tried
meth and 1.5 million use the drug regularly.

Law enforcement officials rank meth as the worse drug problem that
they deal with in a survey of 500 agencies in 45 states conducted by
the National Association of Counties.

In the survey, 70 percent of local law enforcement agencies said that
robberies, burglaries, domestic violence, assaults and identity
thefts have increased due to the meth problem.