CRYSTAL METH BECOMES URBAN THREAT

CHICAGO (AP) -- Already known as a rural scourge, methamphetamine is
becoming a problem in a number of U.S. cities.

Meetings of the 12-step group Crystal Meth Anonymous have increased in
Chicago from one night a week a few years ago to five a week.

In the Atlanta area, methamphetamine users account for the fastest-growing
segment of addicts seeking treatment. Rehabilitation centers there are
seeing an uptick in the number of female meth addicts, while officials in
Minneapolis-St. Paul say they're treating an alarming number of meth users
younger than 18.

"Most people just think it happens in the farmlands and the prairies or out
back behind the barn," said Carol Falkowski, director of research
communications at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. But that's not the
case anymore.

Falkowski found that meth addicts now represent about 10 percent of
patients admitted to drug treatment programs in the Twin Cities, compared
with 7.5 percent a year ago and about 3 percent in 1998. About a fifth of
those meth users who sought help in the past year were minors.

A Traveling Threat

Falkowski and other experts who track urban drug trends for National
Institute on Drug Abuse are meeting this week in Long Beach, Calif., to
present their findings. Some have noted a big jump in the use of meth -
particularly in its potent crystal form - in the past six months to a year.

"It's the new major drug threat," said Jim Hall, director of the Center for
the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University
in Florida. He monitors drug use for NIDA in Fort Lauderdale and Miami,
where crystal meth is often more sought after than Ecstasy and cocaine.

"Here, it's almost like the early days of cocaine, when cocaine was the
chic, expensive champagne of street drugs," said Hall, noting that many
users come to Miami's trendy South Beach strip in search of the purest,
most expensive meth available.

Methamphetamine - long a problem on the West Coast - made its way across
the country in the past decade, often taking hold in isolated rural areas,
where it's usually made because the process creates a noticeable stench.
Increasingly, drug enforcement officials say that mass quantities are also
being shipped cross country from "super labs" in the Southwest and Mexico.

Experts say the drug started to catch on in urban areas in the club and
rave scenes and sometimes among particular populations, such as gay men.
That's been the case in such cities as Washington, D.C., and Chicago, said
Thomas Lyons, a research associate with the Great Cities Institute at the
University of Illinois at Chicago.

Everybody's Drug

Experts elsewhere say their populations of meth users are diversifying, too.

Claire Sterk, an Emory University professor who tracks Atlanta's numbers
for NIDA, said that while meth users there have traditionally been white,
there are early signs that meth is making its way into the city's black and
Hispanic communities. Experts in other cities also have noted that some
young women are using methamphetamine as a way to lose weight.

"It's definitely everywhere," says Adam, a 26-year-old former meth addict
from suburban St. Louis who asked that his last name not be used out of
fear of embarrassing his family.

"Though I'm not using anymore, I'm sure it would only take me three phone
calls to find it" says Adam, who works in the retirement benefits industry.

He also speaks on behalf of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which
launched education campaigns in St. Louis and Phoenix last year to try to
combat growing meth problems there. The nonprofit plans similar campaigns
in at least four other states in the next year, said spokesman Steve Dnistrian.

"Our fear has been that meth will catch on with a new generation of kids
who haven't heard about it," he said.

But in some cases, that's already happening, said Dr. Rob Garofalo at
Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

"It's the drug that makes me cringe the most," said Garofalo, who's come
across a growing number of meth users among the patients he treats at the
hospital's clinic for older youth.