LESSONS, FROM CRACK TO METH

INDIANAPOLIS - Of the 15 new cases of child abuse The Villages deals with
each day, eight are the result of a family engulfed by methamphetamine. It
is a problem that shouldn't have taken Hoosiers by surprise, but it has. In
1998, there were 43 meth labs seized by Indiana State Police, compared to
430 for Missouri and 189 in Kansas. A year later, there were 178 lab
seizures in Indiana (615 in Missouri, 511 in Kansas), 427 in 2000 (918 in
Missouri, 702 in Kansas), 681 in 2001 (918 in Missouri, 849 in Kansas) and
800 in 2002. State police discovered 51 meth labs in Knox County from Jan.
1 to Sept. 30, 2004.

In the face of that sinister trending, the U.S. Justice Department's
Indiana Drug Threat Assessment Update in May 2002 noted, "Methamphetamine
poses the second-greatest drug threat (to cocaine) to Indiana and abuse
appears to be increasing."

This comes in a state that had witnessed its greatest human catastrophe
when crack cocaine came to Fort Wayne in 1985. It took seven years before
it hit Indianapolis, where the city was unprepared for the record homicide
rates, gang turf battles and swamped jails ... the very same symptoms that
had occurred in Fort Wayne. Virtually no one compared notes on the Fort
Wayne and Indianapolis experiences. Now Indiana jails and prisons are
filling with meth addicts and dealers in rural counties and small towns.

Did Indiana learn anything between its crack crisis and the meth tragedies
engulfing Evansville, Vincennes, Terre Haute and Crawfordsville?

"Critically, I'd suggest we didn't learn a whole lot," Department of Child
Services Director James Payne explained. He described a conversation with a
Northern Indiana legislator recently. "I asked him about meth in his area,"
Payne said. "And he said, 'What's that?' We should have been looking at
other states such as Iowa, Kansas and Missouri." It is a problem that is
steadily spreading from western Indiana to east, from south to north.

Payne said Indiana is just now developing protocols such as whether kids
taken from meth labs "be allowed to leave with their clothes, or their
teddy bears." Other states, he said are leveling homes where meth is
produced, excavating three feet of soil under the foundation, and taking
the debris to toxic waste dumps. "And what I saw is that when Indiana
legislators are writing legislation, they were doing so without asking
'What are other states doing?'" Payne said.

Last Tuesday, Gov. Mitch Daniels stepped in to address the festering wound.
He warned reporters that he would order to shoot anyone who asked about
daylight-saving time. It was a joke, but it shed light on the priorities of
state.

Councils and commissioners in places such as Vigo and Knox counties
anxiously awaited his move. In Vigo County, laws already were passed to
limit the sale of over-the-counter drugs used to make meth.

Daniels pulled in a wide variety of resources idle during the meth crisis.
His plan called for the utilization of Indiana's colleges and universities
to help reduce the backlog of drug cases at state police drug-testing
laboratories while preparing Indiana students in the forensic science
field. He ordered the development of a "real time" reporting database
between prosecutors and drug-testing labs, along with standardized
procedures for removing and protecting children exposed to meth production.

And Daniels called for a stricter version of a methamphetamine bill that
would restrict access to ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, two products used
in the production of meth, and a pilot program at the Miami Correctional
Facility that is providing specialized treatment to help rehabilitate meth
users and lower repeat offender rates.

"Methamphetamine abuse in Indiana has no boundaries. Its effects are
devastating to our families and children, our schools, neighborhoods and
the environment," Daniels said. "There is no overstating the damage this
drug is inflicting to Indiana, and there is no step we can take that is too
strong to combat this drug."

This will help expedite the process," said Knox County Sheriff Steve Luce
told the Vincennes Sun-Commercial. "It's ruined a lot of lives."

I called crack cocaine the "greatest human catastrophe in Indiana history."
Meth is joining that pantheon of horror. When 10-year-old Katlyn Collman
was murdered in January after witnessing a Crothersville meth lab, Hoosiers
finally had a tragic poster child.

Daniels noted the 8,500 backlogged cases and ordered a pilot program to put
university faculty and students to work in Indiana State Police labs, which
have been choked with activity.

And there was the announcement of the Clean Lifestyle is Freedom Forever
(CLIFF) program at the Miami Correctional Facility, an idea proposed by
Daniels that took shape within 30 days. Hoosiers saw their new governor
conversing with more than a dozen inmates at MCF.

It was an impressive pulling together of resources and articulation of
policy across a broad spectrum of state assets and generations. And it came
at the directive of a governor who, as a candidate, complained that Hoosier
leaders had been "thrashing around the same rut" while seemingly
intractable problems mounted.

Compared to methamphetamine, the importance of issues like daylight-saving
time and a Colts stadium pales.

* Howey is publisher of The Howey Political Report, the weekly briefing on
Indiana politics. See www.howeypolitics.com.