TBI CHIEF: INCREASED JAIL TIME ONLY PART OF BATTLING METH

NASHVILLE - Longer jail sentences for methamphetamine abusers
won't be the cure-all for the state's growing problem with the
addictive stimulant, said new Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
Director Mark Gwyn. But it's one of several tools Gwyn and other state
officials will use to battle the epidemic.

"If you have longer incarceration that's going to give time to try to
rehabilitate the offender. It's going to take that offender off the
street for a while," Gwyn said in an interview with The Associated
Press. "It will help, but it's not the solution."

Tougher criminal penalties was one of several recommendations
presented to Gov. Phil Bredesen recently by his meth task force, of
which Gwyn is a member. Others include limiting the availability of
products used to make the drug and expanded treatment for addicts.

Methamphetamine affects the central nervous system and is cooked from
over-the-counter ingredients.

Bredesen agrees with Gwyn that increased jail time will be a key
component in battling meth, saying recently that addicts need to spend
time in a confined situation because they have "no remorse" when using
the drug.

The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration has reported 1,253 meth
labs cleaned up in Tennessee in 2003, the most in any state for the
third straight year. It estimates the state is home to three-quarters
of the meth labs in the Southeast.

The governor is expected to push for legislation to enact the
recommendations when the General Assembly reconvenes next year.

Gwyn, who was sworn in as TBI director June 28, said meth will have to
be "attacked from several different angles" for the state to finally
get a handle on both the manufacturing and use of the drug.

"It's not something you can just say, 'OK, if we put 100 more officers
on the street we can solve this problem,"' he said. "Meth is not like
that."

"To really get ahold of it, we're going to have to attack it not only
from a law enforcement perspective, but from a legislative
perspective, just all the way around."

Gwyn says that during his years in law enforcement he's seen the
"complete evolution" of meth in Tennessee from a rural drug imported
mostly from California to a statewide epidemic manufactured and used
by Tennesseans from all walks of life.

"The nature of the drug, -- the tentacles that spread out from meth
are unlike any other drug in the way it affects not just the user, but
the people around the user," he said.

Gwyn knows from firsthand experience the violence and destruction meth
can cause.

As a TBI field agent assigned to several Cumberland Plateau counties
almost ten years ago, Gwyn said he worked one of the state's first
meth-related murders.

"Two men were kidnapped and tortured for several days (by a
meth-addicted man), and later murdered and thrown off a bridge into
Center Hill Lake," he said. "It showed me exactly what this drug could
do to people, how violent it could make someone.

"-- I had never seen anything like it in my law enforcement career."

Gwyn has been with the TBI since 1988, and he previously served as
assistant director of the bureau's Forensic Services Division. As
director, he vowed to make meth one of the top - if not the highest -
priority for the TBI, which has original jurisdiction in investigating
violations of narcotics laws.

While he believes the agency is "getting there" when it comes to being
prepared to fight meth, he acknowledges it's hard to truly know what
is needed "until we take some of these (task force) recommendations
and try to put them in place.

"It's so widespread now that there's no way from a law enforcement
perspective that I think we can get our arms around it," he said. "No
matter what, it's going to take other help."