'THIS TOWN IS SO FULL OF METH'

California Farm City Leads Nation In Per-Capita Needle Use

FRESNO, Calif. - The nation's capital of intravenous drug use is not
New York or Miami, not Chicago or Detroit - but Fresno.

It is an unlikely distinction for a city of fewer than 500,000 people
in the heart of one of the nation's richest agricultural regions.

The percentage of people shooting up heroin and other drugs in Fresno
is nearly three times the national average, fueled by a boom in
methamphetamine use, according to a study issued last month.

"This town is so full of meth," said Amy Wilson, 28, who was ordered
into rehab after her daughter, now 3 1/2 months old, tested positive for
methamphetamine at birth.

"My grasp on reality was gone," she said. She described drug use in
Central Valley as "like a cancer."

Law enforcement agencies and treatment counselors say they are
overwhelmed by the scope of the problem, which is compounded by HIV
and hepatitis C infections that come from sharing needles.

The Fresno area has become home to Mexican drug cartels that operate
in its rural expanses, where the farm chemicals used to make meth are
readily available and the noxious fumes are less easily detected.
According to a 2001 estimate by the Drug Enforcement Administration,
80 percent of the country's meth comes from the cartels.

Part of the problem in the Fresno area is poverty, said Samuel
Friedman, a research fellow at the National Development and Research
Institutes in New York and primary author of the study in last month's
Journal of Urban Health.

Fresno County, where farmworkers get paid low seasonal wages, is one
of the poorest counties in the nation. More than 20 percent of its
residents - an estimated 165,000 people - live in poverty, according
to census estimates, and the per capita income is $15,495 a year.

In the study, Fresno was found to have 173 IV drug users for every
10,000 people. The national average is 60 per 10,000 people.

It is a problem that has been costly for the government. Fresno County
spends $20 million a year on drug treatment programs that served more
than 9,000 people in 2002, and the programs are straining to keep up
with demand.

"Now at least we have a waiting list," said Dennis Koch, administrator
of Fresno County's Alcohol and Drug Program. "Before, we used to not
have these programs. There was nothing to wait for."

Meanwhile, the number of addicts who shoot up with dirty needles has
placed a heavy burden on public health. A recent Fresno County study
found that 75 percent of the area's injection drug users had hepatitis
C, compared with 2 percent of the general population. The county had
251 new HIV infections last year, a 17 percent increase from the
previous year.

Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law that makes it
easier for drug addicts to buy clean needles.