DRUG INVADES THE NORTHLAND

Methamphetamine Has Inundated the Criminal Justice System And
Threatens Local Communities

Eight years ago, methamphetamine cases in St. Louis County courts were
about as common as Republican office holders here.

Last year, though, county prosecutors on the Iron Range and Duluth
handled about one meth case every other day, according to court records.

"It has become rampant," said John DeSanto, St. Louis County's chief
prosecutor. "Meth cases take up our time now immensely. There is no
question about that."

From recovering addicts to police officers, more than two dozen
people on the front lines of Minnesota's and Wisconsin's drug wars
told the News Tribune that the highly addictive stimulant is a growing
threat to Northland communities.

Twin Ports authorities say meth has been the No. 3 drug of choice
here, behind marijuana and crack/cocaine, for the past five years. But
it is gaining fast in popularity, and experts consider it more
devastating than any other drug.

The Minnesota Multi-Agency Meth Taskforce calls it an epidemic and
crisis across Minnesota. Earlier this month, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said it
was a serious and growing problem that deserves the attention of
public officials, police and residents.

Still, no one knows how many people are using meth in Minnesota or
what it costs taxpayers. What is known is that the problem comes with
an assortment of human and financial costs, including housing
prisoners, paying for treatment and hospital bills, caring for the
children of addicts, and cleaning up the hazardous waste found in meth
labs.

From 2000 to 2003, felony meth cases handled by the St. Louis County
attorney's office in Duluth went from 30 to 48, but the high of 72 was
in 2002. In 2002, the Duluth Police Department recorded 86 contacts
with people on meth-related calls, as varied as possession,
manufacturing and assaults. Last year, that number dipped to about
60.

On the Iron Range, the jump in felony meth cases, which includes
possession, sales and manufacturing, has been the most dramatic. In
2000, the county's Hibbing and Virginia offices had 38 cases. Last
year, they had 115.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Special Agent Jerry
Koneczny, who is based in Duluth and is trained to dismantle meth
labs, said most of the county's meth lab busts have been on the Iron
Range. Across the nation, meth typically is made in rented homes or
rural areas to avoid detection, because the fumes are so strong, he
said.

New Crime Wave?

"Meth today is to blue-collar, rural white people what crack cocaine
was to poor, urban black people in the 1980s," said David Malban, a
veteran Duluth defense attorney who handles drug cases.

He said, though, that meth hasn't resulted in nearly as much violent
street crime.

The sudden increase in meth users also has not been quite as dramatic
as crack cocaine was in the mid-'80s, said Carol Falkowski, director
of research communications for the Hazelden Foundation, a nonprofit
chemical-dependency treatment facility based in Center City, Minn.
Many more Minnesotans struggle with addictions to alcohol or
marijuana, she said.

While Falkowski disagrees with calling meth an epidemic in Minnesota,
she said that while most drugs remain at fairly stable levels of use,
meth is showing great increases.

"With the exception of marijuana, it was the highest amount of drugs
seized and purchased (by undercover police and informants) in
Minnesota last year," said Sgt. Dennin Bauers of the Duluth Police
Department narcotics unit.

In addition, for the first time ever, in 2002, the number of Minnesota
convictions for meth crimes and the number of people who entered state
chemical-dependency treatment nearly matched or surpassed those for
crack.

But because of meth's devastating effects on the body and brain and
its prolonged high -- 20 minutes for crack versus eight hours for meth
- -- Falkowski said it is unlikely it will ever surpass cocaine's popularity.

"This is a dangerous drug and we should all be alert to its growth in
the state," Falkowski said.

Dr. Bob Zotti, an emergency room physician at St. Mary's Medical
Center in Duluth, said fears of an outbreak of meth use are warranted.
It has certainly happened elsewhere, he said.

Zotti said the Duluth hospital has seen a steady increase in the
number of emergency room admissions related to meth as well as drug
screens for meth use in the past few years from nearly none to several
a month.

"They (police) are finding more clandestine labs in Minnesota, so, of
course, the easier it is to find, the more we'll see it," he said.

Big Cities Next

A 2002 Drug Enforcement Administration report to Congress said meth
production and abuse have expanded into western Wisconsin as well. The
DEA office in Madison reported that meth is readily available in
Northwestern Wisconsin. Most of it comes from Minneapolis.

After the number of meth cases in western Wisconsin doubled from 1996
to 1998, Wisconsin officials began targeting labs with additional
Division of Narcotics Enforcement agents and training local law
officials to track and prevent meth use. But two years ago, the
Wisconsin District Attorneys Association complained that meth cases
were overwhelming district attorneys in counties bordering the Twin
Cities.

Minnesota has made some similar efforts in the past three years,
including establishing the Multi-Agency Meth Taskforce and handing
over most rural cases to the state attorney general's office. The task
force is charged with educating the public about meth and training law
enforcement to deal with it.

In Iowa, meth first hit rural areas, then seeped into Des Moines,
where now more than 20 percent of arrested men test positive for it.
Observers expect the same scenario to occur in Minnesota. In a growing
number of rural Minnesota communities, meth already is the predominant
hard drug, according to the Multi-Agency Meth Taskforce.

The Twin Cities and Hennepin and Ramsey counties, though, haven't been
walloped like the rural areas have. About 4 percent of Hennepin County
men arrested tested positive for meth in 2002, up from about 1.5
percent two years earlier, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

"If we are waiting for those numbers in the Twin Cities to get big
before we do something, it's really a shame," said Deborah Durkin, an
environmental specialist for the Minnesota Department of Health and a
state task force member.

Falkowski said if the state did testing in rural Minnesota, it might
discover some unpleasant results.

Durkin's 2-year-old unit promotes a county-based approach that calls
for the creation of local meth task forces, which coordinate social
services, police, politicians and health officials.

There aren't any comprehensive local meth multi-agency task forces.
And fewer than 20 of Minnesota's 87 counties have one, she said.

Unfortunately, the places meth has hit hardest -- rural areas -- have
the fewest resources to fight it, Durkin said. That's typical for the
entire Midwest, she said.

Fred Friedman, Northeastern Minnesota's chief public defender, said
meth has become such a problem partly because Americans consistently
spend the least on law enforcement and courts in rural areas.

Minnesotans tend to believe that, if they don't live in a big city,
they aren't affected by drug use. But meth, in particular, is
different. No place is immune, Falkowski said.

"What has come to the attention of (Minnesota) law enforcement only
represents the tip of the iceberg as far as what's out there,"
Falkowski said.

Duluth's Detoxification Center doesn't see many methamphetamine cases,
said Sharon Oates, its director. But that's because most people who
overdo meth usually wind up riding it out at home rather than passed
out in a hospital emergency room, she said.

Rural hospitals in places like Ely and McGregor are seeing a higher
average of meth medical emergencies than their big-city counterparts,
Oates said.

State officials say that the problem is worsening in nonmetro areas,
but a comprehensive study on hospital admissions, deaths, arrests and
treatment enrollment does not exist.

Crime Follows

The aggressive nature of the meth high often leads to violence with
police and family members. Iron Range narcotics investigator Tim
Peterson, based in Virginia, estimated that 90 percent of the Iron
Range's domestic abuse and assault cases are related to alcohol or
meth or both.

In Mower County in southern Minnesota, 60 percent to 70 percent of all
crimes are related to meth somehow, County Attorney Pat Flanagan said.
The rural county, where Austin, Minn., is the county seat, borders
Iowa.

Studies also have shown that a meth addict commits an average of 67
crimes to feed the addiction, said Cheryl Harder, a probation officer
in St. Louis County's Drug Court.

A coveted ingredient in meth is anhydrous ammonia, a farm fertilizer.
Users often will break into family farms for it. Some Northwestern
Wisconsin counties, where farming is more common, have experienced
this problem.

"What we've found is that we are only limited by our resources in the
number of cases we make," said Bauers, who also heads the Lake
Superior Drug Task Force, covering the southern part of St. Louis
County and Lake and Cook counties. "We could fill the (St. Louis
County) jail with just meth heads."

Different Drug

When Duluth Police Chief Roger Waller, who used to run the region's
Gang Strike Force, was asked about meth, his reaction was a guttural
"ugh." It destroys good people and families, he said.

"I've never seen a drug that's as devastating," said Peterson, the
Iron Range narcotics investigator.

Users say it produces an indescribable high. But it is a caustic stew
that ravages the body and mind, leaving people depressed and paranoid.

Many addicts will stay high for days, called being "spun," then don't
care for their children, authorities say.

In Zotti's role as chief medical officer for the Duluth Police
Department's tactical response team, he saw one Duluth meth dealer's
home outfitted with heavy steel doors and mounted cameras on each side
of the house.

"They might get busted with a lab, but getting caught with a lab and 5
pounds of methamphetamine is a much stiffer penalty," he said.

Lab operators and dealers are often well-armed, and the labs are
sometimes booby trapped, according to a November 2003 report by the
Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Clearly, if you talk to people who use meth, what really
distinguishes addicts is that they are really out of touch with
reality," Falkowski said. "That can make them an incredible threat to
public safety."

Peterson tells a story of a Northland meth dealer who used to stand in
his darkened living room, peering through the front window's curtains
for 12 hours straight. He was waiting for Peterson's truck to go by so
he could call the coast clear and make a sale. Peterson said he made
an extra effort to drive past the man's house on his way home from
work, figuring that he would make sure the man was too paranoid to
deal drugs.

Drug dealers, especially meth dealers, live in a world filled with DEA
agents behind every tree and undercover officers making every
purchase, Peterson said.

Eleven of Peterson's 30 years in law enforcement have been as head of
the Boundary Waters Drug Task Force, which coordinates information and
police departments across the region. His jurisdiction covers the
northern half of St. Louis County as well as Koochiching and Itasca
counties.

Most drug cases are either developed through tipsters, like concerned
parents, or informants who have been caught with drugs and want a way
to "work off their sentences," Peterson said.

"I know most of the (meth) dealers up here, and they know me," he
said.

In the past seven years, he has seen more and more of his caseload
devoted to meth, up to 85 percent of his 40 open cases, he said.
Minnesota's drug law enforcement community is fixated on the meth
problem, Peterson said.

Slightly Down

Local law enforcement and health officials wonder if the problem may
have plateaued here.

St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman noted that the number of meth
felonies dropped from 2002 to 2003. "It is a problem. I just don't
know that I'd say it's an epidemic," Litman said. "The caseload is
substantial, though."

The potential is there for meth to become an epidemic, Litman said. He
applauded the county's two law enforcement drug task forces -- the
Lake Superior Drug Task Force and the Boundary Waters Drug Task Force
- -- for keeping the problem under control.

"We only found four meth labs in St. Louis County last year," he said.
"That's not a high number and somewhat surprising that we didn't
discover more. Maybe we're not catching them."