TOWN MEETING USES REALITY TO TEACH DANGERS OF CRYSTAL METH

BOAZ - Is it cool to die with foam pouring from your mouth and nose?
Adolescents and teenagers might want to ask themselves that question before
they consider trying crystal methamphetamine. The pictures shown at a town
meeting on the subject at Boaz High School were graphic, but typical of the
type of death associated with the drug. Alcoholic Beverage Control Board
Agent Mike Reese of Anniston has a collection of gruesome pictures he keeps
on a laptop.

He travels to meetings like the one hosted by the Marshall County Crystal
Methamphetamine Task Force. He takes those pictures into schools.

Everywhere he goes, he sends a message: "We have got to do drastic things.

We've got to know where our children are, who they are with and what is in
their rooms." Reese, Marshall County District Attorney's Office
Investigator Bill Stricklend and a crystal meth addict addressed a crowd of
about 150 parents, children and educators at the meeting Monday night. The
Crystal Methamphetamine Task Force is holding a series of town meetings
across the county to teach the public how to spot abuse of the drug in
their children and the manufacture of the drug in their neighborhoods.
Other 6 p.m. meetings are scheduled for April 23 at Douglas High School,
May 6 at Asbury Junior High School and May 13 at Albertville Elementary
School. Reese said that some parents might balk at searching their
childrens' bedrooms to check for signs of drug abuse. "This stuff can be
right under your nose and you won't know it," Reese said. "My kids are
worth it." Not only must parents be vigilant, but children must also be
willing to stand up against use of crystal methamphetamine and other drugs
in their schools, he said. Reese told tales of GHB, a mixture of two easily
purchased chemicals, which has caused overdoses in young people trying it
for the first time. GHB is also known as a date-rape drug because those who
take it have no memory of what happens to them afterward. Parents can't
count on a child's friends watching out for him, either.

Kids have overdosed and been left where they fell, or at best been driven
to the hospital and pushed out of the car into the parking lot. "They don't
want to mess up their high or get in trouble with the law or parents by
going into the hospital," Reese said. Seeing their friends get hurt or die
from drugs is apparently not much of a deterrent.

Reese told of a Gadsden boy whose best friend died from a MS Contin
overdose about 16 months ago. At the time, that boy warned his friends to
stay away from that drug. Two weeks ago, however, the boy died from abuse
of another drug, an inhaled gas. An 11-year-old Marshall County boy told
Reese recently that he is addicted to inhaling gas, or huffing.

The boy is now in treatment. Not only is drug use prevalent in Marshall
County, but drug making is, too. "If you live in Marshall County, you live
near a meth lab," Stricklend said. The labs are not necessarily in rural areas.

Many are located in neighborhoods. They are dangerous because the chemicals
used to make crystal meth can be volatile and dangerous to breathe when
mixed. Some warning signs of a crystal meth lab can be found in the garbage.

Stricklend told the audience to look for red-stained coffee filters,
lantern fuel cans and unusual amounts of glass containers, such as canning
jars, with tubing running out of them. Different combinations of
ingredients can be used to make meth, but some of those involved are iodine
tincture, methanol, rock salt, gas line antifreeze, muriatic acid and
ephedrine, which drug makers get from over-the-counter allergy medicines.
Some of the tools meth users need include portable scales, a straw, a pipe
and a portable torch.

Some test the quality of the drug with kits designed to test swimming pool
water. Almost every meth user has one tool he can't do without - a weapon.
"They get paranoid, and they carry guns," Stricklend said.