Series: Part 2 Of 8

DRUG FINDS ITS VICTIMS EVERYWHERE

Community: 'Vicious Cycle' Of Meth Goes Well Beyond The Gay Community To
Moms And Schoolkids.

LONG BEACH - For Maria, the primary attraction was weight loss. Within her
first month of using crystal meth, her 5-foot-4 frame dropped from 150
pounds to 110 pounds. As an operations manager for a shipping company, it
also helped her work longer hours.

"I liked the effect it gave me," says Maria, who spoke on condition that
her last name be withheld. "I wouldn't eat, and I'd be up all night. It was
awesome, because I could do so much work ... in the beginning."

But quickly, the drug had her feeling too amped. She switched to heroin to
dull her jitters.

"It became a vicious cycle, speed and heroin, speed and heroin," she said.

Now, 21 years later, the 45-year-old mother of three is taking her third
stab at treatment at the Redgate Memorial Recovery Center in Long Beach.

Abuse of crystal meth has ballooned citywide, and nationwide, over the past
five years, according to officials at the Substance Abuse Foundation, the
city's largest drug treatment center, which occupies a full city block at
Seventh Street and Obispo Avenue. About 70 percent of patients at the
92-bed facility are recovering from an addiction to meth, followed by
cocaine and then heroin.

Dee Cliburn, a volunteer with Being Alive Long Beach, an HIV action
coalition, does outreach at homeless encampments and other areas that she
knows are saturated by users. There, she offers information on alcohol and
drug abuse, counseling and HIV testing and hands out bus tokens, phone
cards, referrals and hygiene kits. About 60 percent of the 1,500 people she
works with use crystal meth, she said.

The stimulant is creeping into ethnic communities, where it used to be
rare, and infiltrating younger age brackets than ever before, experts say.

"Way back, it was always just white people doing meth," said Robert Bowen,
intake supervisor at the foundation. "Now (Latinos) and African-Americans
are doing it. ... And the ages are younger. It's kids that should be in
school - ages 13, 14 and up.

Bowen, a recovering meth addict, attributes the drug's growth here to cost
and intensity.

"It's cheaper," he said. "With cocaine, you do it and it lasts a little
while. With meth, you do a little bit and it lasts all day. You get more
for your money."

Crystal meth is on the rise everywhere. Federal officials estimate there
are 1.5 million regular meth users in the United States today. More than 12
million Americans had tried it at least once, according to the 2003
National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Abuse and production of the drug continues at high levels in Hawaii, the
West Coast and in Southwestern areas of the United States. It has also been
marching eastward and infiltrating urban and rural areas at a pace
unrivaled by any drug in recent times, according to the National Institute
on Drug Abuse.

"You can go anywhere and meth will be there," said Long Beach Police Sgt.
Paul LeBaron, "High school students, older people, younger people .. anyone
is a potential candidate to use meth. ... College students right down to
the dirtiest, filthiest scumbags are using it."

And the drug often leads to criminal behavior. While any crime is
potentially connected to drug use, long-term meth abuse brings on
aggression, anxiety and paranoia, and "makes you do crazy things," LeBaron
said.

"In the Police Department, we're targeting it more as a main element of
violent crime," he said.

Maria said that the drug tricked her when she started using.

"In the beginning, you feel really good, you feel productive, you're losing
weight, and then it changes," she said. "You just start feeling oblivious
to everything. There's nothing around you anymore."

The drug cost Maria her job, permanently took away her sense of smell and
wreaked havoc on her family. "I let myself go and I let my kids go," she
said. "I let them go in the sense that I didn't really care what I was
doing. I was so tired and strung out. That drug to me is the devil."