ARK. SHERIFF EXPLORES LINK BETWEEN METH AND ARROWHEADS

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

White County Sheriff Pat Garrett says 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," Garrett said.

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

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

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," Young said. "You get
to looking and an arrowhead catches your eye."

Many nights Young found himself in fields full of fellow arrowhead hunters.
Now Young 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 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 archeological sites,
said Arkansas State archeologist Ann Early.

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

While surface hunting for arrowheads is legal, trespassing and digging
through archeological sites is illegal, Early 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.