OFFICIALS 'CROSSING FINGERS' THAT METH EPIDEMIC STAYS OUT OF CONNECTICUT

Methamphetamine, and the identifiers for its use, addiction and abuse that
have rapidly spread throughout Western portions of the country have yet to
emerge in central Connecticut, according to area and state health officials.

Hospitals recount only isolated incidents involving the substance. Arrests
for methamphetamines have been so rare that some area police departments
say they do not even track the drug.

An area substance abuse treatment center reports few encounters with
methamphetamine users. But considering the drug's rising popularity in
certain pockets of the nation, officials there say they are crossing their
fingers that a Connecticut methamphetamine epidemic is not on its way.

"We've been very fortunate here in Connecticut," said Ken Talge, CEO of
Alcohol & Drug Recovery Treatment Centers Inc., which operates a facility
in Hartford. "We thought it would surface here, and it hasn't."

During a 10-year period ending in 2003, the number of individuals over 12
years of age reported as admitted to substance abuse treatment centers
nationwide who declared methamphetamines their drug of choice grew by more
than 500 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.

In western states such as Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Utah, admission
rates grew by more than 1,000 percent. In Connecticut, reported
methamphetamine users grew from 1 person for every 100,000 in the state to
3.8 users.

"It's not what you see out West and in the Midwest," said Alfred Bidorini,
an official at the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction
Services.

Men and woman who report methamphetamines as one of their three drugs of
choice represent about .2 percent of the more than 45,000 annual visits to
state-licensed or operated substance about treatment centers, he said.

Additionally, a random telephone survey of more than 4,400 households
throughout the state conducted from July 2003 to April 2004 by the
department and the University of Connecticut found that .1 percent of adult
respondents said they had used methamphetamines in the past year.

One explanation officials have for Connecticut's relative insulation from
the spread of the drug is that methamphetamine laboratories emit strong
odors that would easily trigger suspicion in more densely-populated states
on the East Coast.