ALABAMA DOCTOR STARTS 'MOTHERS AGAINST METH'

CHATTANOOGA (AP) - Dr. Mary Holley knows firsthand the ravages of
methamphetamine. As an obstetrician in Albertville, Ala., she estimates
about 10 percent of her pregnant patients are addicted.

One was "high as a kite. Comes in dilated 9 centimeters. She is pushing out
her baby. I am trying to get the clothes off this woman so I can deliver
this baby and a gun falls out of her bra," Holley said.

But the methamphetamine epidemic in Appalachia has now become a personal
crusade for Holley. Four years ago, her brother Jim shot and killed himself
after a struggle with meth addiction.

"After he died, I started looking into it as a physician, as a scientist,"
Holley wrote on her Web site. "What is this drug that destroyed his life in
just two years?"

A photo of her brother appears on the Web site for Mothers Against
Methamphetamine, or MAMa, a Christian ministry that Holley founded last
year to fight the popular drug.

The group already has chapters in Tennessee, Georgia, Oklahoma, Missouri
and Ohio, and Holley said the Web site gets about 6,000 hits a month,
including about 25 a day from "parents wanting to know what to do with
their kid."

Mothers Against Meth has worked with churches to start addiction support
groups, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. And the MAMa Web site offers
pamphlets that detail the dangers of meth.

"People don't realize what this drug is doing," Holley said. "One look at
the brain scan in my pamphlets will change that attitude."

Meth targets the central nervous system. People who use the stimulant tend
to hallucinate and become aggressive, in some cases violent. Their children
are often neglected or abused.

Meth can be cooked using cheap, over-the-counter ingredients: ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine from cold tablets, red phosphorous from matchbook strike
plates, ether from engine starter, iodine and sulfuric acid from drain cleaner.

The epidemic is spreading quickly across the country, particularly in
rural, mountainous areas. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
estimates Tennessee accounts for 75 percent of meth lab seizures in the
Southeast.

Holley, who is a Christian, believes drug addiction is "primarily a
spiritual disease, not a social disease."

"When I talk to these kids, about 20 percent (of meth users) are basically
healthy kids who made a bad decision. About 75 percent are broken, hurting
people, abused and battered as kids," she said.

"They use this drug because it works. It makes them feel better. They have
been rejected and humiliated and miserable people all their lives. It just
makes everything better. This stuff works."

She said a religious approach to treating addiction is the only solution.

"Law enforcement is helpless. They can't possibly bust every lab. They
can't keep them in jail long enough for them to heal," Holley said.
"Education is helpless. They lack the resources and the moral authority to
change the situation."

Tennessee is among 14 states picked by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services to receive grants for expanded drug abuse treatment. Gov.
Phil Bredesen, who plans to propose meth-battling initiatives in 2005, said
much of the $17.8 million will be used for treatment.

Bredesen's meth task force has recommended using "faith-based and
community-based treatment options."

"I don't see a lot of success with the secular programs," Holley said.
"They have diluted God out of it. As they have diluted God out of it, they
have diluted their effectiveness. Christian rehab centers that keep them
for a full year have about 80 percent rate keeping them clean long term.
Secular is 20 to 30 percent."

Dr. Sullivan Smith of Cookeville, a member of Bredesen's meth task force,
said the panel is "looking at some options to expand existing drug and
alcohol programs."

He said the federal grant would hopefully be spent with "an emphasis on
treating methamphetamine addicted people."

"I think there is hope, but not in the system we are currently working
with," Smith said. "What we are doing now isn't working. It's a revolving door."