SUMMIT WILL EXAMINE NEW STRATEGIES TO BATTLE METH EPIDEMIC

ATLANTA -- If methamphetamine abuse is a disease in Georgia, maybe the
beginnings of a cure can be found in Oklahoma.

That midwestern state made it harder to buy over-the-counter cold medicine,
which is used to produce the potent methamphetamine. The result of
Oklahoma's new law? Meth labs discovered by police dropped 75 percent after
it was adopted last spring.

Solutions like that will be examined closely this week in Atlanta as more
than 200 drug enforcement and treatment professionals meet to flesh out
strategies for curbing meth use in Georgia.

Like Oklahoma and other rural states, Georgia has seen meth production
mushroom in sparse areas where the toxic fumes created during its
production go unnoticed.

"In 1999, my office worked one (meth) lab," said Phil Price, the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation's special agent in charge of drug enforcement in 37
North Georgia counties. "This year, we'll work over 100."

Georgia has passed new laws in recent years to damp the problem, but a meth
epidemic persists.

In 2003, the Legislature passed tougher punishments for people who make and
sell meth. It's a felony in Georgia to possess more than 300
over-the-counter cold pills. It's also a felony to possess any amount of
anhydrous ammonia, a common fertilizer, with the intent of making meth.

This year, lawmakers allowed prosecutors to hold parents and caregivers
criminally accountable for reckless child endangerment in meth-related
cases. The law creates a separate felony for making meth in the presence of
a child.

While such law-and-order strategies could emerge during this week's summit,
some attendees also want state decision-makers to focus on curbing demand
through education and treatment.

Gwen Skinner, director of the Georgia Department of Human Resources
division in charge of drug treatment, said more money is needed if the
state is to keep pace with the growing number of meth addicts needing help
to get off the highly addictive drug.

"(Meth) is significantly more potent than all the other forms of
amphetamines," added Bruce Hoopes, addictive disease chief for the Division
of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Diseases. "This
is not something you can quit using and come back to normal in two to three
months. We need to try to hold onto these people as long as we can."

Summit goers will hear speakers, including Gov. Sonny Perude, then spend
two days in working groups, devising recommendations for their communities
and the state.

The governor's office hopes that conversations among police, drug treatment
experts and lawmakers will produce some new ideas about stopping meth use.
In Oklahoma, the cold-pill crackdown came after a similar summit.

"Methamphetamine abuse ... is an issue we would like to get ahold of prior
to it becoming an epidemic as it has out West," said Rebecca Sullivan,
policy adviser to Perdue. "There are a lot of people in Georgia who are
addressing this problem, but they aren't necessarily working together, and
they're not aware of what each other is doing."