METH ADDICTS BECOME PROBLEM IN U.S. CITIES

It's A 'New Major Drug Threat,' Abuse Expert Says

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 in treatment. Rehabilitation centers there have had
an increase in the number of women meth addicts, and officials in
Minneapolis-St. Paul say they are 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, the director of
research communications at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. But
that is not the case anymore.

Falkowski found that meth addicts 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 3percent in 1998. About
a fifth of those meth users who asked for help in the past year were
minors.

She and other experts who track urban drug trends for the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, 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, the 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," Hall said, adding 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 over the past 10 years, often taking hold in rural
areas, where it is usually made because the process creates a stench.
Increasingly, drug-enforcement officials say that mass quantities are
also being shipped cross country from "super labs" in the Southwest
and Mexico.

In North Carolina, law-enforcement officials commonly refer to Watauga
County as "ground zero" in the state's fight against the drug, but the
problem is moving east like a weather front, according to Attorney
General Roy Cooper. In cities and rural areas alike, methamphetamine
production and use is North Carolina's fastest-growing drug problem,
he said.

Winston-Salem police said that so far, meth labs have not gotten much
of a foothold in the city. "We have not seen an influx in the labs
here in the city of Winston-Salem," Capt. David Clayton said. "We're
working very hard so that it doesn't happen here, but one could be
next door and you wouldn't even know about it."

Experts say that 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 has been the case in such cities as Washington and
Chicago, said Thomas Lyons, a research associate with the Great Cities
Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Often, he said,
meth use has been associated with increases in sexually transmitted
diseases, including HIV.

One recovering addict who helps organize Chicago's Crystal Meth
Anonymous meetings said that gay men frequent the meetings - but he
said that, increasingly, he is seeing people from other
backgrounds.

Claire Sterk, an Emory University professor who tracks Atlanta's
numbers for NIDA, said that although 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.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America started education campaigns in
St. Louis and Phoenix last year to try to combat growing meth problems
there. The nonprofit group is planning similar campaigns in at least
four other states in the next year, said Steve Dnistrian, a spokesman
for the group.

"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 is already happening, says Dr. Rob Garofalo at
Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. "It's the drug that makes me
cringe the most," Garofalo said.

At first, he said, young meth users see the drug as a "brightener" -
one that helps them concentrate, stay up for hours and feel in
control. In time, however, users become increasingly paranoid and
aggressive. It is also highly addictive - "such a slippery slope,"
Garofalo said. "You can't just dabble in crystal meth."