FRESNO'S DRUG WOES ARE 'LIKE A CANCER'

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, tested positive for
methamphetamine at birth. "My grasp on reality was gone."

Wilson described drug use in California's 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 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 also 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 rock-bottom, 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.

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. Three
other urban areas within 200 miles also made it into the top 10 -- San
Francisco, Stockton-Lodi and Bakersfield.