TANNER: COUNTY'S CRACK-RELATED CRIMES RAMPANT

When convicted burglar Arthur Garfield pleaded guilty in court last
month to five break-ins at villas and condos on Hilton Head Island, he
told the judge he stole because his crack addiction was out of control.

If local law enforcement officials are correct, Garfield is not
alone.

About 85 percent of both local and national crime -- everything from
theft and robberies to domestic violence and murder -- can be tied
directly or indirectly to drugs or alcohol, said Beaufort County
Sheriff P.J. Tanner.

In Beaufort County, the drug most often associated with burglaries and
robberies, Tanner said, is crack -- a relatively cheap, smokable form
of cocaine. The Sheriff's Office made arrests for 130 crack-related
incidents last year in southern Beaufort County, ranging from simple
possession to manufacturing.

But that doesn't even begin to explain the extent of the problem,
since addicts will rob or steal to support a habit, he said.

Of all convicted jail inmates, 13.3 percent committed their crimes to
buy drugs, according to a 1999 study by the U.S. government's Bureau
of Justice Statistics. The number was 24.4 percent of those convicted
of property crimes, the study said.

Garfield, 39, confessed to 15 burglaries and said he shoplifted
constantly from supermarkets to fuel his addiction, according to a
police report made after his arrest in January.

Crack is bought and sold in units called "rocks" similar in size and
appearance to hard-rock candy. Rocks sell for about $50 and last for
up to five smokes, Tanner said, meaning that users can have habits
ranging from $50 to $500 a day.

The sheriff -- who said he made the county's first-ever crack bust in
Beaufort when he was a deputy in September 1986 -- said the drug has
since, "leveled out to be a serious problem."

"Once we knew what we were dealing with, it spread like wildfire
through the north part of the county," Tanner said.

The trend, with periodic dips and rises, has since evened out, with
use high on both sides of the of the Broad River, he said.

By contrast, heroin use, common here in the late '70s and early '80s,
declined rapidly after the AIDS epidemic hit, Tanner said, with users
apparently afraid to share needles for intravenous use. Meth, or
methamphetamine, which has plagued other parts of the country and even
the state, has not hit hard in Beaufort County.