STATISTICS SHOW METH'S QUICK GROWTH

Marijuana has been Lincoln's preferred drug for more than a quarter
century, but a methamphetamine boom confined mostly to the last five years
may eventually dethrone it, according to police.

The Lincoln Police Narcotics Unit released its 2001 arrest statistics this
week, and they echoed what Police Chief Tom Casady said earlier this month:
Meth use is skyrocketing.

The total number of people police arrested for possession or distribution
of each drug was unavailable. Those figures would take months to compile,
authorities said, so they offered the drug unit's numbers as a snapshot.

Of the unit's 576 arrests last year, 144 - 25 percent - were for meth. The
unit made 198 arrests for marijuana possession or distribution - 34 percent
- - but the gap is closing.

"I can tell you that methamphetamine is fast becoming the drug of choice in
Lincoln," said Capt. Duaine Bullock, the unit supervisor. "The
methamphetamine that is coming into this community is just unreal."

From September to December 2001, narcotics unit officers learned through
interviews with arrested suspects that those suspects alone were connected
to an estimated 100 pounds of meth entering the capital city.

Such information helps police learn the pulse of narcotics in their cities,
Bullock said. The gathered intelligence occasionally leads to seizures, but
it always gives police a glimpse of what is coming.

Much like powdered cocaine, meth requires only small quantities for one
person to get high, so 100 pounds could affect thousands of people, he said.

The Narcotics Unit had intercepted about 7 pounds of meth from December
into this week, according to police statistics, a tally that led to 11 arrests.

But this is not meth's first Lincoln visit. In the early 1970s, meth -
known then as crank - was distributed mainly by motorcycle gangs. Now, it
seems, everybody's involved.

"What I've seen over the years, there might be a lot of marijuana, then
there might be a lot of other drugs, but now they don't really have those
cycles," Bullock said. "It's just a solid amount of methamphetamine.

"I don't see any reduction in the amounts that are coming this way."

Law enforcement alone cannot solve the problem, he said. Police need public
help from the stores that sell items used to make meth, help from the
public to spot or smell new labs and help from parents and loved ones.

"If they leave it to law enforcement, we have a problem," Bullock said. "We
rely on the public to help us and be our eyes and ears . . . this community
needs to get together and be aware of what's going on in the street."

Other narcotics, especially crack and powdered cocaine, remain popular
among drug users in Lincoln, but their prevalence has waned.

Officials have blamed much of last year's crime increase on the production,
sale and use of meth, which can be manufactured, although dangerously,
using mostly household products.

Casady told reporters, politicians and anyone who listened that the use of
meth was outpacing other hard drugs, that its prevalence - combined with
how quickly it creates dependence - would cause more crime.

"These are not victimless crimes when the victim is someone other than the
user," Casady said. "Meth is a particularly diabolical drug, in our
experience . . . and obviously it worries me."