Series: Meth In The Mother Lode (Part 3a)

TOUGH BUT TRUE TALK ON METH: INMATES AND COPS HELP EDUCATE TEENS

Former meth dealer Rob Cardenas was serving a second-strike prison term at
Sierra Conservation Center when he spoke to a group of teens, all of whom
had used meth and some of whom had also dealt the drug and stolen to get
money to buy it.

Cardenas said if he ever breaks the law again, or is caught with even one
bag of methamphetamine, he will be back in prison for the rest of his life.

"And not one as nice as Sierra Conservation Center," he told a half-dozen
teens late last year at Rite of Passage - a San Andreas-area school for
juvenile criminal offenders, most of them from out of the area.

Whether it's Southern California, the Bay Area or the Mother Lode, the
effects of methamphetamine can be seen throughout the state. And educating
children and adults alike is a key element in trying to fight the war on meth.

Cops like Jim Mele, head of the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Department
narcotics team, don't want to see kids having to deal with the consequences
of using meth.

That's why Mele brings 30-to 90-minute presentations to high school classes
and church youth groups. He also meets with service groups and hospital nurses.

Besides the statistics he shows about drug usage during the last 10 years,
there are graphic photos.

One shows a Tuolumne County man burned almost beyond recognition after a
meth lab exploded.

He also shows a startling series of 12 police booking photos showing the
physical deterioration of a young blonde-haired Hollywood woman after five
years of meth use. The final photo shows the woman's face, sallow and
toothless.

High school students who see the photos often groan. It's the reaction Mele
is looking for.

"If they see what it looks like to use meth, maybe they won't want to use
it," he said.

A small portion of Tuolumne Narcotics Team's $730,000 annual budget is
spent on educating the public about the dangers of meth, Mele said.

About $450,000 of the budget this year came from state and federal grants
given to fight drug crimes.

However, each year since Sept. 11, 2001, more and more of the federal grant
money has been redirected to Homeland Security. And on top of that there
have been state and county budget cuts, Mele said.

Judging from the half-dozen teens who gathered around the SCC prison
inmates, more education is needed.

All of the teens in the group gathered before Cardenas, then serving time
at SCC, admitted to using meth. Some had sold the drug. Others confessed to
stealing to get money to buy it.

These teens are already juvenile offenders, however, the goal is for them
to turn their lives around. And that's why the SCC inmates put more focus
on Rite of Passage than area high schools.

Cardenas and two other prison inmates spent many hours giving teens the
real-life story about drugs, "gang-banging" and life in prison.

"You can spend all night long selling (drugs) and is that going to get you
that mansion?" he asked the teens. "It's going to get you this orange
jumpsuit and a hotel room in the Jamestown prison. Man, you gotta start
thinking."

Matt Petro, since released from SCC, told the teens he'd learned new
behaviors in prison and recognized his old friends were not friends at all.

"We call these people friends who give you a bowl, a line or a gun," Petro
said. "They aren't your friends. My homies in my neighborhood said they
loved me all day long, but they loved me only because they wanted me to do
things for them."

Cardenas talks like the teens, has tattoos like them and knows what the
kids have been through.

"It's the same corner, the same bag of ," he said. "I'm tired of all
these war stories about drugs. It is all so boring."

Dr. Todd Stolp, director of the Tuolumne County Public Health Department,
said the ultimate solution to the meth epidemic is not controlling the
supply, but rather changing a culture that resorts to artificial pleasures
like drug usage.

Stolp said people must find pleasure in more constructive outlets.

"The components that lead to methamphetamine use are the ones, as a
society, we need to address," he said.

The doctor cited socioeconomic factors like being raised in an abusive
family where kids turn to meth use to give them a simple way to feel better.

And because meth is relatively cheap to get and so highly addictive, Stolp
said, it is hard to combat.

Union Democrat reporter Mike Morris contributed to this report.