METH-USE COSTS SLAM STATE'S RURAL COUNTIES

Methamphetamine use is costing Colorado's northeast counties nearly $1
million more in prosecution, enforcement, incarceration and child neglect
costs than it did three years ago, a study released Monday estimated.

A survey conducted in the largely rural communities of Kit Carson, Logan,
Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Yuma counties asked agencies to
estimate what they were spending on meth-related consequences.

Counting indirect costs such as extra staff or jail space, the survey found
that agencies spent $916,850 more in 2001 than they did in 1999.

The estimate, however, is inexact. For example, nearly half the increase
includes higher jail and prison costs, which rose by $426,335 during that
period. But corrections officials could not pin down how much of the
increase was linked to methamphetamine.

The impact is clearer, however, when it comes to costs such as child abuse
and neglect programs. Human service officials in the seven counties figure
that roughly a third of their increased costs - or $222,520 - are tied to
meth use.

And that does not include the human toll of suicide, lost jobs and broken
marriages, said members of a task force set up last spring to deal with the
problem.

"I call methamphetamine the walk-away drug," said Tom Westfall, director of
Yuma County Human Services and chairman of the task force. "People walk
away from their families, their homes, their marriages, their jobs."

Westfall cited one case in his county where a woman brought her baby to a
party and left the child with people she had just met.

The woman left and disappeared for six months, until she was arrested in
another state.

In the meantime, Human Services placed the child in foster care.
Eventually, the county moved to terminate the mother's parenting rights and
put the child up for adoption.

Methamphetamine use has been on the rise throughout Colorado over the last
five years. But rural areas have been particularly hard hit, said Lilias
Jarding, who conducted the study for Colorado State University's
Cooperative Extension program.

Drug-processing ingredients such as fertilizer are plentiful, as are remote
areas where the drug can be manufactured without arousing suspicion, he said.

Jarding said the survey obtained responses from about 27 percent of the
agencies surveyed.

Morgan County Undersheriff John Fryar first noticed the increase about a
year ago, when drug cases began piling up.

Last year, the sheriff's office investigated 37 methamphetamine cases. So
far this year, the number is at 61.

Judge Stephen Shinn said he started noticing the change about three years
ago. Meth cases started filling his general docket. The same people would
often be back before him on child neglect charges.

Shinn would like to see the counties obtain funding for a separate drug
court. The task force plans to apply for a federal drug court grant later
this year.