ARKANSAS METH ADDICTS SEEM TO BE COLLECTING ARROWHEADS

Dealers And Users Trade Artifacts Among Themselves, Suspect Says

SEARCY, Ark. - The time-consuming and methodical motion of searching
for arrowheads on farmland and in riverbeds seems to appeal to
methamphetamine addicts, a sheriff says.

White County Sheriff Pat Garrett said that after more than 100 search
warrants, he has come to expect arrowheads, many thousands of years
old, when he storms the home of suspected meth makers.

"I noticed it when I first started. It just seemed there were always
Indian arrowheads, and I couldn't figure it out," Sheriff Garrett said.

Tony Young of Velvet Ridge said the sheriff is on to
something.

"You get kind of wired on that stuff, and you need to have something
to do," said Mr. Young, who is in the White County jail awaiting trial
on methamphetamine charges.

Mr. Young, 36, sold his arrowhead collection to a local dealer for
$1,250 - enough to pay for a defense attorney. He said "head hunting"
filled his need for activity when he was on meth.

"You just get to walking and looking at the ground," Mr. Young said.
"You get to looking, and an arrowhead catches your eye."

Many nights Mr. Young found himself in fields full of fellow arrowhead
hunters. Now he is in jail, surrounded by fellow inmates who say they
also searched for arrowheads before they were incarcerated.

"The strangest things you find out there is other dopeheads," said Mr.
Young, who added that drug dealers and users often trade the
arrowheads among themselves.

But local farmers find the groups of drugged arrowhead searchers an
annoyance.

"To me, arrowhead hunting is the same as me going to a stranger's
garden and picking his tomatoes," said Jerry Smith, who farms in
nearby Bradford. "That land and what's on it belongs to me."

The searchers also may be threatening the integrity of archaeological
sites, said Arkansas State archaeologist Ann Early.

"It is very troubling, for a variety of reasons, that the culture of
meth use has embraced the idea of collecting relics," Dr. Early said.
"I know that people using methamphetamine are out collecting at sites.
Some have been digging at rock shelters in the Ozarks."

Although surface hunting for arrowheads is legal, trespassing and
digging through archaeological sites is illegal, she said.

In April 1998, two Bentonville men were charged and later convicted of
murder for leaving two young children in a hot unventilated car for
about eight hours while they hunted for arrowheads. The men were under
the influence of drugs at the time, police said.