Series: 8 Of 10

AS METH USAGE GOES UP, SO DOES COMMUNITY CRIME

For those who work in law enforcement, it is widely accepted that as
methamphetamine use goes up in the community, so does the crime rate.

A report prepared by the federally funded High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Awareness program states that homicides, robberies, assaults and vehicle
thefts all increased in Oregon in 2002 compared to the previous year.

It also lists methamphetamine abuse as a primary contributing factor in the
commission of many of these crimes.

Oregon State Police Trooper Tim Plummer is painfully aware of the
connection between methamphetamine use and crime. He is a drug recognition
expert trained to identify the effects different drugs have on the body. He
says "tweakers" -- or meth users -- are among the most dangerous for police
to deal with because they are so volatile and unpredictable.

"When you come across somebody who is under the influence of
methamphetamine ... the biggest thing to remember is to use a lot of
caution," Plummer said. "I just came off an injury from a guy who was on
methamphetamine."

Plummer pulled over a man in September just off Highway 99 near Dillard who
was allegedly under the influence of the drug. He took on Plummer and
another trooper and appeared unaffected by the use of pepper spray. He was
finally subdued and arrested, but the struggle left Plummer with injuries
to his back and groin.

"(Meth's) an adrenaline potentiator, it's like being on adrenaline all the
time," Plummer said. "If you have somebody who is in the raging stage of
methamphetamine (use), that's where you can't reason with them anymore ...
there is a real potential for physical violence."

The drug also plays with the user's head, sometimes causing paranoid delusions.

One night, Plummer investigated a semitruck crash on Interstate 5 in which
the driver had become stuck in the median after trying to cross from the
northbound lane into the south. As Plummer was on his way to the crash,
several calls came into the dispatch center about a man allegedly pounding
on doors in a nearby neighborhood, screaming that he was being followed.

"He ran from his truck after he got stuck," Plummer said. "When we
approached him to begin with, he started accusing us of being in his truck.

"'I know you've been in my truck because I can smell the methamphetamine on
you,'" Plummer recalled the man saying.

"I said, 'We haven't been in your truck, but we're gonna be,'" Plummer said.

Another time, he investigated a man who pulled up to a county weigh
station, told the weighmaster on duty that he had just shot somebody, and
then presented him with a .44 Magnum pistol. A hole was found in the back
seat of the man's vehicle that had passed all the way through the rear
license plate.

The man told police he had been driving from Klamath Falls to his home in
Washington when he suddenly saw some "small people" jumping up and down on
the back of his vehicle. He said the small people managed to get inside his
vehicle somehow and were spitting on him, so he pulled over and shot at them.

Such extreme encounters aside, police say they deal with the criminal
effects of methamphetamine abuse all the time, from domestic violence and
child endangerment situations to addiction-fueled property and identity
theft sprees.

"Identity theft and forgery have become synonymous with methamphetamine
violators," states the HIDTA report.

Those who manage to pay for their habit without stealing are often doing so
because they are dealing the drug.

"It's such an expensive habit that the only way to support it is to start
selling it, and that's what I did and that's what my friends always did,"
said recovering addict Andrea York of Roseburg. "Pretty soon you're using
all your profit."

Authorities agree that few of the people arrested for dealing
methamphetamine prove to be successful entrepreneurs in the field.

"We'll have people break down for us -- 'This is what I pay, this is what I
sell it for, this is how much I make' -- of course, the problem is they use
some, they share some, you know, they're not necessarily good businessmen,"
said Douglas County Deputy District Attorney Jeff Sweet.

"Rarely do we actually find meth abusers, dealers, that are really making
any money," agrees his law enforcement partner at the Douglas Interagency
Narcotics Team, John Hanlin. "The only ones that are really successful at
dealing, don't use."

Or at least don't use the drug they're dealing, York said. She has never
known a drug dealer who wasn't using some kind of illicit substance.
Ironically, much of the crime -- whether personal or property-related --
occurs among people within the drug community itself.

"There's no loyalty," York said. "The only thing you can afford to be loyal
to is your drug."

Although the incidence of methamphetamine use and the drug's availability
in Douglas County and the rest of Oregon continues to rise, the resources
officials have to enforce drug laws continue to dwindle.

At the time the HIDTA report was prepared, Oregon had 73 percent fewer drug
task force personnel on hand than it had in 2001. This corresponded with
cuts at the Oregon State Police and other police agencies.

"In 1991 we had 71 detectives working drug enforcement in teams throughout
the state," said OSP Lt. Glenn Chastain in Salem. "As of November 2003, we
had 12."

Chastain said during the same time frame they went from participating in 17
different interagency drug teams in southern Oregon to none.

"We do assist on a part-time basis" in some areas, Chastain said.

The number of troopers available to intercept drug shipments on the state's
highways has also gone down, from 665 in 1990 to 329 currently on patrol --
a reduction of more than 50 percent.

"This reduction of traffic enforcement will negatively affect highway drug
interdictions," predicts the HIDTA report. "Utilizing commercial trucking
and the I-5 corridor, (drug trafficking organizations) continue to take
advantage of the lack of highway interdiction programs to move product
north and south along the West Coast."

Meth And Crime Quick Facts

. Oregon Department of Transportation data indicated a 200 percent increase
in traffic fatalities between 1999 and 2001 where the driver tested
positive for methamphetamine.

. Methamphetamine has been identified as a primary contributing factor in
violent crimes such as homicide, robbery and assault, and in property
crimes such as burglary, forgery, fraud and possession of stolen property.
Homicide, robbery, assault and vehicle theft all increased in 2002 versus
the year before, according to law enforcement agencies.

. There is a child in 1 out of every 4 methamphetamine labs in Oregon.
Officers took 55 drug-endangered children into protective custody from meth
lab sites in the seven Oregon counties with the biggest methamphetamine
problems. The children removed from these hazardous sites ranged from
newborn to 15 years old. In one case, police found a lab in the home of a
day-care provider, and in another, two children ages 9 and 10 were injured
when a meth lab exploded.