BRADFORD COUNTY SITUATION PAINTS SCARY PICTURE

About 18 months ago, Phil Cusano was starting a community task force
to combat his county's growing methamphetamine crisis.

Cusano decided to start calling human services officials in counties
throughout the state to see if they were interested in forming similar groups.

"Everybody said the same thing: 'We don't have a problem,' " said
Cusano, director of Bradford County's drug and alcohol programs.
"Well, now we say that if you don't think you have a meth problem,
you just don't know about it."

Just three years ago, meth was seemingly nonexistent in Bradford
County. Since then, the problem has erupted in this northeast
Pennsylvania county of about 62,500, a population about 1/10th the
size of Bucks, according to 2004 U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

Bradford County, which is about a four-hour drive from Lower Bucks,
has seen the number of meth laboratories seized by police jump from
six in 2003 to 20 in 2004 and 40 so far this year, according to state police.

"It's definitely had a dramatic effect on our county over the past
couple of years," said Sgt. Jack Strozyk of the Towanda Police
Department. The borough is the Bradford County seat.

According to Cusano, drug and alcohol treatment centers in Bradford
this year have admitted more than 50 people who listed meth as their
drug of choice. That's about 15 percent of all people admitted into
treatment centers in the county.

In March 2004, the county was thrust into the national spotlight when
two county sheriff's deputies were shot and killed in the driveway of
a home in Bradford's Wells Township while trying to serve a warrant
for a meth lab found in 2003 at the home.

"[Bradford County] is where the biggest problem is in this state
right now in terms of meth," said Capt. David Young, director for the
Pennsylvania State Police's Drug Law Enforcement Division. "It hasn't
hit Bucks yet, but it's hit [Bradford County] hard."

While he didn't have the statistics to back it up, Strozyk said meth
use and distribution have led to a dramatic increase in crimes such
as domestic disputes, fights and theft in his borough.

"There's always been crime here, but it has increased dramatically
since meth got here," he said.