ATHENS MIGHT BE SURROUNDED BY METHAMPHETAMINE, BUT COCAINE STILL ROCKS THE TOWN

While methamphetamine use is spreading across Georgia like a cancer,
cocaine still rules as the drug of choice in Athens-Clarke County.

"Where I come from, meth is the big thing," said Jason, a 19-year-old
Commerce resident enrolled in a local drug rehabilitation program. "When
you want coke, you come to Athens."

Jason's excitement over making Commerce High School's varsity football
squad was soon quashed after a teammate told him about the wonders of
cocaine. He skipped practice one day and came to Athens with $50 in his
pocket to experience it for himself.

"A buddy of mine tried it the weekend before at a bar in Athens, and he
really glorified and glamorized it," Jason said. "He had a few drinks and
went into the bathroom and did some off the counter. He told me it was like
you're on fire, and he was right."

Not long after taking his first hit of cocaine, Jason turned from a varsity
football player into a common thug with a knife in his sock to rob drugs
from a dealer. He was hauled out of his classroom in handcuffs for stealing
his mother's ATM card and wiping out her checking account to support his
coke habit, he said.

The drug quickly became the teen's master, causing him to lie, steal and
rob - whatever it took to get money.

"Me and two friends robbed a dope man once," he recalled during a recent
group counseling session with other addicts run by Advantage Behavioral
Health Systems, which provides mental health, substance abuse and other
services to Athens-Clarke and nine other counties. "We had a T-ball bat we
called 'The Undertaker,' and I had a knife on my ankle, and we took him to
a remote place outside of Athens, threatened him, took his bag of dope and
tossed him out of the car in the middle of nowhere."

Six of the other people in Jason's group had similar stories to tell,
ranging from sleeping with strange men in exchange for drugs, to stealing
money from their families and pawning belongings, to robbery.

"I held a concrete block over the dope man's head while the others went
through his pockets and took a quarter ounce of cocaine and some marijuana
from him, said Pam, a 45-year-old addict who once thought more about
supporting her habit than taking care of her children.

"When my children were walking out the door with DFACS (the Department of
Family and Children Services), the only thing on my mind was where my next
hit was coming from," she said.

Support groups usually meet in private sessions and members use only their
first names to preserve their anonymity. This group allowed a reporter sit
in on a session.

"I started with powder, but was told crack was the Devil's drug, that once
you try crack you'll never go back," said Rusty, a 42-year-old mother of
5-year-old twins. "It's true. The first high is incredible, but it starts a
crazy chase. You're constantly chasing that first high, but you never catch
it."

Another group member, Corey, said he first tried cocaine when he was 16, an
age when he felt awkward in social situations.

"It makes you feel like you're Superman," he said. "It gives you confidence
and courage to walk up to anyone and say anything you wanted."

Corey, now 20, said to support his habit he stole his mother's wedding ring
and other jewelry, sold a $9,000 car she gave him for $500, and "stole just
about anything I could get my hands on."

Because of its euphoric effects, Corey said, he continued smoking crack
even after he suffered three cocaine-induced seizures since last November
and nearly died.

Focus On Cocaine

The euphoric feeling is the allure of cocaine, crack cocaine in particular,
which remains the worst substance abuse problem in Athens-Clarke County
because of the many crimes connected to the drug, according to police.

Coordinator Cassandra Conton and counselor Kevin Guthas listen to a support
group member speak about her experiences with cocaine during a recent
meeting at Advantage Behavioral Health Systems1 Addictive Diseases Services
Unit.

"The most prevalent drug by far is marijuana, but crack cocaine leads to so
many other violent and property crimes by individuals involved in its use
or distribution, which is why we focus our efforts on crack," said Lt. Mike
Hunsinger, who supervises the Athens-Clarke Police Department's Drug and
Vice Unit.

That focus by local police seems evident in the number of people held on
meth-related charges in the Clarke County Jail on a recent weekday - none.
In contrast, 35 people were in jail that same day on cocaine-related charges.

"As times change, meth is coming on strong in our community and counties
surrounding us, but right now and in recent years, crack cocaine has been
the No. 1 problem," Hunsinger said.

Although Athens-Clarke police couldn't provide statistics, Clarke County
Superior Court Judge Steve Jones, who presides over the local Felony Drug
Court, agreed with Hunsinger that cocaine remains the root cause of most
crimes in the county.

"Cocaine is still the base problem," Jones said. "More than half of the
cases that come before us are drug-related, and cocaine is involved 65
percent of the time."

Crack addicts burglarize homes, break into cars, commit armed robberies -
anything it takes to get money to support their addictions, Hunsinger said.
More violent crimes, such as murder and aggravated assault, result from
turf disputes between dealers, he said.

That is why for more than a year, the Drug and Vice Unit has teamed up with
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency to track down mid-level crack cocaine
suppliers in Athens, and have so far made more than a dozen arrests on
federal charges of possession of cocaine base, crack's main ingredient.

On July 7, authorities made one of their most aggressive attacks on cocaine
when they arrested more than 80 street-level crack dealers during a
pre-dawn sweep involving some 160 officers from 13 state, local and federal
agencies.

Driven By Demand

One of the men who led the drug sweep was Phil Price, special agent in
charge of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's Canton Region Drug
Enforcement Office.

Price had no idea why crack continues to be the drug of choice among so
many addicts in Clarke County.

"The drug business is just that - a business," he said. "Crack will only be
replaced in Athens when there's more money to be made selling methamphetamine."

According to the GBI official, the drug trade is driven in part by demand
from students attending the University of Georgia, located near the heart
of downtown Athens.

"The students come from all walks of life and different parts of the state
and even out of state, so you don't see the standard trends that we've had
in the rest of the state," Price said.

While crack remains the police drug unit's primary focus, Paul Moon, a
counselor who runs group sessions for Advantage Behavioral Health Systems,
said he's seen a more and more "cross addicted" clients, people who use
both crack and meth.

Some of the addicts in Moon's group session said even though they started
with cocaine and continue to smoke crack, they also graduated to
methamphetamine, which produces a similar high at a lower cost.

In the same way experts refer to marijuana as a gateway drug to other, more
powerful substances, addicts say cocaine was their entree into the world of
meth.

Many users first turn to cocaine and other drugs because of peer pressure,
a lack of self-esteem or confidence, Moon said.

"Those psychosocial reasons when certain people turn to drug use is their
way of stress management, but its self-destructive stress management," Moon
said.

"The reason I started using drugs is because it made me change the way I
felt about myself," said Angel, a 32-year-old support group member who is
on probation for possession of cocaine.

"But once you get some cocaine, you want to do all of it, no matter how
much you have," she said. "When I was in a car wreck and drove down a big
embankment, I finished smoking (crack) while I was sitting in the back of
the patrol car. When I was in jail I vowed never to do it again, but when I
was released, I was smoking again that same night."

Angel, who last smoked crack two months ago, said she would trade sex for
drugs, and lost her job, home, even her child because of her addiction.

"If I took care of my son, I'd have to give up my partying." she said.
"It's a very powerful drug. Just talking about it right now I can taste it
coming up my throat."