DEALING WITH DRUGS IN UTAH COUNTY

She's the woman you see at the mall, with her 13-year-old tagging behind her.

Getting into her sedan at the end of the trip, new pink sweater in
the Macy's bag, her cell phone rings.

But sometimes when Mechelle Leifson's phone rings, the mother of four
recovering drug addicts' heart jumps.

There have been too many late night phone calls in the past six years
for her stomach to not still drop, for her to not worry about her boys.

Rewind to 2000.

Riley Leifson is her oldest. He was just graduating from high school
- -- an exciting time for any mother. But something wasn't right.

There were secrets. He wasn't smiling the same and he was talking on
the phone behind closed doors. She started listening in.

"I carried a number around in my purse of the drug cop for Spanish
Fork -- that was back in 2000 -- and probably talked to him on the
phone every day."

She would hear her son leave, then she would call the police. She
knew he was doing drugs, but she could never catch him in the act. He
was arrested for the first time, for underage drinking, in May 2000.
Frustration mounted. She wanted to get him help, and rehabilitation
didn't work because her son didn't want help. She kept the issue
bottled up, confined to the family.

"You don't want anybody to think that your family isn't perfect,"
Mechelle Leifson said. "I just didn't know what to do. You don't know
where to turn."

The Leifsons are just one family who struggle with drug addiction in
Utah County, a place where heroin and drug-related-deaths rates are
rising, requiring the attention of peace officers, health officials,
counselors and those in the judicial system. Read: that's tax money
attempting to heal the 85 percent of substance abusers in the Utah
County Jail, and their families.

Enter PANIC

For two years, Mechelle Leifson was alone in her fight to stop the
drugs. Then an acquaintance, Cindy King, sent an e-mail in October
2002 saying she wanted to start a support group for parents of
addicts. From that, PANIC was born, Parents -- now People -- Against
Narcotics In the Community.

The group is for people feeling fear when drugs creep into their
family. In Utah County, those who work with drugs every day say that
it is a common problem.

"The amounts of drugs that we seize continually go up, the amount of
cases that we do continually go up," said Utah County Major Crimes
Task Force Lt. Mike Forshee. "I'm bound only by the amount of
officers I have. If I doubled the amount of officers I had, I'd
double the amount of siezures I could do."

It's not just about the seizures. It's what drugs do to the families,
Richard Nance, substance abuse coordinator for the Utah County Health
Department, pointed out.

Just last month, on Feb. 26, the task force made one of its biggest
busts ever. Twelve pounds of methamphetamine, worth $750,000 was
recovered from a vehicle and a home in West Jordan.

Nance said that while Utah's rate of treatment compared to population
isn't large, that offers little comfort to a family dealing with an addict.

"We do have a drug problem here, there's not one county in the
country that doesn't," he said. "Utah County usually has half the
rate of the state and Utah usually has half the rate of the country as whole."

Not Alone

Mechelle's panic was greeted with love that October night in 2002.

She walked into welcoming doors, nervous at first, but she realized
that she knew nervous parents. All of these "friends" who her son
talked about, the nicknames he used, had mothers who Mechelle knew.
She wasn't by herself anymore.

The parents learned one lesson that night that has become the PANIC
mantra: Once an addict, always an addict.

"We all thought that there was going to be a quick fix," Mechelle
Leifson said. "I thought that when I walked into that meeting that
night, someone was going to tell me to do this, this and this and it
would be fixed. There is no cure for addiction."

What started as a small meeting -- a dozen parents -- now draws
hundreds from around the county to the Spanish Fork Middle School
cafetorium. Leifson, who leads the monthly meetings, said she does it
for son No. 5, Judd. He will graduate from high school in May and she
wants him to stay clean.

Judd stays away from drugs because of his brother's story, he doesn't
want to do drugs because he knows what it can do. Addiction is the
war that families like the Leifsons fight, a war seemingly without end.

Once An Addict ...

Riley Leifson's first drug arrest was for heroin on April 17, 2003.
In the jail, he joined those struggling just like him.

No matter the crime they committed, 85 percent of inmates at the Utah
County Jail are reported to have a drug addiction, according to the
Utah County Health Department.

It means that drugs drive crime.

"You've got to get money for the drug addiction," Nance said.

With a street value of $60-$70 a pill, if one was addicted to
OxyContin at four pills a day, the addiction would cost about $1,820
per week. That's more than $7,280 a month, Nance said.

In Utah County, 89.4 percent of those in treatment programs are below
federal poverty guidelines. That means an income of roughly $10,000
per year, according to the 2007 Department of Health and Human Services.

"You either steal the drugs or steal the money to buy the drugs," Nance said.

A County Addiction

"Our biggest problem is methamphetamine. It seems to be the drug of
choice," said Forshee of Utah County Major Crimes Task Force. "It's
responsible for a lot of the property crimes, a lot of the identity thefts."

One of the more recently discovered labs was allegedly run by Provo
couple Evelyn and Maximino Arriaga, who were arrested on Jan. 12.
Scales and supplies were found in their home and in the shed next
door. They are charged with operation of a clandestine laboratory and
child endangerment because there was a 1-year-old child living in the
home. The preliminary hearing is set for March 19. Division of Child
and Family Services took custody of the child.

Methamphetamine, once known for it's clandestine labs hidden in
neighborhoods, has become trafficked like marijuana and cocaine. Most
of the drugs -- cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana -- in
Utah are from Mexico, said Forshee, and that has changed the way the
task force handles stings.

Why the change in the where drugs come from? A few reasons: Utah has
a limited growing season, so drugs like marijuana struggle. In
reference to methamphetamine, the task force credits four strict
federal laws passed in the 1990s on access to ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine, key ingredients for meth. Economics play a role,
too, because it's cheaper to import.

Research by James Cunningham, Ph.D. of the University of Arizona
Applied Behavior Health Policy, showed that each time laws were
passed, arrests and hospital admissions went down.

Forshee said it's made it too difficult to mass produce and sell the
drug locally, making it easier to go foreign. Instead of finding
hundreds of labs a year, like the task force did in 2000, they find
only six to eight a year.

For the most part, it's agencies like the Utah Highway Patrol that
now get surprise busts when they break a link in the drug pipeline,
Forshee said.

According to the police, there are three problem drugs in Utah County.

"Marijuana is our biggest usage, but methamphetamine is probably the
worst drug that we have and heroin is killing people more than
anything," Forshee said.

Breaking it down: marijuana is easier to get, so it doesn't cause as
much crime; methamphetamine causes the crime; and heroin is becoming
known for its overdoses.

A Rise In Heroin

The heroin rise is tied to costly prescription drugs sold on the street.

A study released last month by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services listed Utah as leading the nation in nonmedical use of
prescription drugs in 2004 and 2005, with 6.5 percent of the
population using drugs without a doctor's order.

And Nance said that Utah County's prescription drug abuse is worse.

"You have to compare Utah County to other places," he said. "We have
about half of the total drug problem that Salt Lake County has. But
we have three times of the amount of opiate abuse addiction that Salt
Lake County has."

Both heroin and prescription drugs like OxyContin, Lortab and
Percoset are opiates, and thus result in similar chemical reaction in
the brain. And while OxyContin is expensive, $60-$80 a pill, or $1
per mg, on the street, Forshee says a balloon of heroin sells for $10 for 3 mg.

It's a cheaper hit for the same high. But the problem is, heroin is a
powerful drug and police are seeing people overdose.

"Today I'm seeing kids that have never drank in their life, never
smoked cigarettes, going from doing prescription drugs to doing
heroin," Forshee said.

Heroin used to be the hard stuff, a drug that users worked up to.

"They are just not an experienced drug user to handle it," he said,
noting that they will take too much too soon and overdose.

Former presiding 4th District Judge Anthony Schofield said that he's
seen the rise in heroin-related cases.

"There's heroin cases in our court every day," he said, noting that
it used to be methamphetamine.

Nance said drug court in 2000 was referred to as meth court, but not
any more. While 4th District Judge James Taylor, who presides over
Utah County's first-time offending drug court, said most addicts are
poly-users, meaning that they use several different kinds of drugs,
he's seen an "upsurge in heroin" cases.

Because of the rise in opiate use, the type of drug treatment the
county has is changing. The county offers two opiate treatment
centers, Discovery House and Project Reality.

Systematic Approach

Utah County's drug court plays it a little different than most.

Because 85 percent of crimes committed are connected to drugs in some
way, anyone facing a felony for the first time has a chance, albeit
slim, to get into Utah County's first-time offender drug court.

Taylor has been presiding over the drug court for five years, and
says that of those who start the drug court program, 60 percent
graduate. Of those who graduate, only 10 percent ever come back to court.

Through the yearlong court process, Taylor forms a personal
relationship with each of the 60 drug court clients.

"It's been very rewarding," Taylor said. "It's heartbreaking to see
them die or leave."

In the past four years, Taylor said there have been 240 drug-related
deaths in Utah County and 14 of those have been drug court attendees.
A drug court client enters the program by being charged with a felony
of possession of a controlled substance or a drug-related crime.
Nance said that for many it's a wake-up call because it's the first.

There is only room for 60 people in the drug court program for first
offenders and about 10 for second offenders. Those in the program
enter a plea in abeyance with the court so that when they finish the
program successfully, the charge is erased from their record.

It starts with Phase 1, where clients meet with the judge every week,
along with the coordinator. After complying, they move to Phase 2,
where meetings are every two weeks and so forth until Phase 4. Drug
tests are random, but frequent, and dirty tests have consequences.

"If we get a test that they've been using, I immediately sanction,"
Taylor said. He might send the person to jail or to Foothill
Residential Treatment Center -- Utah County's 10-bed social
detoxification facility. Or, they might do community service. It's
his choice and he defines the need.

"I put people in jail knowing that if I don't, they will be dead,"
Taylor said. "More often, when I lock them up, it's not to punish
them, it's just for the treatment to clean them up."

He isn't without treatment center options, should that be his choice.
Nance says that Utah County has more drug treatment centers than he
can count. And they serve addicts of all walks. Last year the county
treated 2,057 addicts. Nance said that an estimated 9,800 people in
the county need treatment.

Foothill is a public program for adults only, where addicts can walk
in either court ordered or off the street and detox while supervised.

Ryan Sights, substance abuse counselor aide, said there's no
medication involved and that the process can be excruciating.

Over the course of seven to 10 days, clients go through the "worst
flu one could ever imagine," said Gordon Bruin, program services
manager in the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse. Diarrhea,
shakes, vomiting, sweats and nausea are all part of the acute
withdrawal of opiate addiction.

Always An Addict

Foothill also has a residential program for 22 people, separate from
the detoxification facility, where clients work to end addiction.
Sights said that treatment only works when an addict wants it to.

Sights says that often, family members bring them in by force, but
the minute the family leaves, the addict walks out.

That's why Riley Leifson said it didn't work for him.

"The only reason kids go to rehab is to satisfy their parents," he
said. "Nobody else can do it for you, you've got to want it."

Instead, the desire for treatment comes from within.

Riley Leifson said that in his four-year struggle with drugs, the
real wake-up call was a stint in jail and two years of probation,
which requires constant drug testing. Fail probation and it's back in
jail and back through the court system.

Knowing the consequences, Riley Leifson has stayed clean.

New Money

Resources in the way of $8 million came for 2008 from the Legislature
via the Drug Offenders Reform Act, or DORA. Utah County Substance
Abuse prevention will get $533,000 for assessment of convicted
felons, said Richard Nance, director of Utah County Substance Abuse.

Sen. Chris Buttars sponsored the bill. He said that he'd been working
on the act for six years, believing fervently in the statistic that
75 percent to 85 percent of inmates have a fundamental controlled
substance abuse problem.

Nance said that in Utah County's jail, the statistic is 85 percent,
with opiate use being the worst problem.

Under the act, Utahns convicted of a felony drug crime after July 1
this year will be required to participate in a drug treatment
screening and assessment process prior to sentencing. Courts would
determine the extent to which an offender should enter a treatment program.

Buttars said that 2,000 inmates could benefit from DORA, spending
$4,200 to treat each person. In the long run, Buttars said it will
save space in the prison and money.

On average, it costs $50 a day to incarcerate an inmate in the state
prison, according to the state drug court. That's $100,000 a day if
those inmates don't reoffend, and half of them likely won't according
to drug treatment statistics.

"The savings to society is enormous, the savings to families are
unbelievable," Buttars said.

Nance said that when inmates enter the county jail, they are assessed
already to determine their addiction. It helps them know how to best
help them -- and to know what drugs are being used in Utah County.

Utah County representatives in the division of substance abuse and
representitives from the courts will be meeting in the next few weeks
to discuss what to do with the funds.

One Family's Story

They were curious. It simply couldn't be that bad. So a sip here, a
sniff there.

For Riley, Jordan and Travis Leifson, drugs started their respective
senior years of high school.

At first it was alcohol; police picked Riley up for underage drinking
in May 2000.

But that wasn't drugs, so it wasn't bad, right? It sounds cliche, but
the adage held true: Everyone was doing it, Jordan said.

"Everybody feeds on everybody else," Riley said.

And when friends start, it's not an addiction, it's an activity.

"It's accessible. It's kind of like one big group," Jordan said.

And eventually, as it almost always does, the addiction takes over.

"There was a point when I thought I wasn't going to quit. I thought I
was going to die doing heroin," Riley said.

Their mother watched her boys' personalities change. In three years
she had three addicts.

At first it's easy to hide an addiction because the drugs are paid
for with a job. But eventually the drugs become more important than a job.

Mother Mechelle would come home and items would be gone: her diamond
ring, a television, little brother Judd's Nintendo, little sister
Linzi's bike. All sold to pay for drugs.

When police told Mechelle that Division of Child and Family Services
could take her youngest two children from her if drugs were in the
home, Mechelle had to make a rule: no drugs, and that meant no boys.

So in the middle of winter 2003 her boys left. She didn't want to
learn tough love, but she did, even when sores were covering Jordan's body.

"I had Travis's funeral planned," she said.

She says that parents often enable addicts.

"We bail them out, we pay the thousands of dollars for rehab. For my
kids, none of it helped. Even after I kicked them out and they lived
on the streets in the dead of the winter. All they had to do was quit
using drugs and I would have let them back in."

And while Mechelle had kicked them out, she hadn't given up. She kept
in contact with the police -- she's had the number in her purse for six years.

It was the law that brought most of the boys back to clean living.
One by one her sons, clearly related with shaggy blonde hair and blue
eyes, turned themselves in. At one point all three were in the Utah
County Jail at the same time.

While Travis was running -- a warrant was issued for his arrest -- he
spoke with Spanish Fork drug officer Phil Nelson almost everyday for
30 days. Nelson told him to turn himself in when he was ready.

"He just kept saying 'When you're ready to go to jail, bud, come
back. There's just no way out this time,' " Mechelle Leifson said.
"To this day, Travis says, he's the one that saved his life."

Travis got out of jail on Halloween, so with all of the brothers
sporadically serving time, this Thanksgiving was the family's first
spent together in four years.

But a wary Mechelle says she's learned that it's "once an addict,
always an addict." She knows her sons will struggle for the rest of
their lives. Drugs change the chemical makeup of the brain.

"It's sad," she said. "It's not just like they go in one time and
they're cured. It's in and out."

It's the rollercoaster that makes every phone call cause the heart
jump. Her last scary phone call was in December. This time it was Jake.

She thought he was doing well, but Jake says that having a full-time
job, a lot of money and nothing to spend it on started taking him to
Spanish Fork from Vernal three times a week for OxyContin with
friends who were involved in the drug.

When OxyContin wasn't available, he had found methadone for the high.
It put him in the hospital in Vernal and he woke up a week later in
Provo at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.

"I didn't know if I'd gotten hit by a car, I didn't know what had
happened," Jake said of waking up in the hospital surrounded by his family.

He's now drug tested three times a week, and staying clean and taking
classes about drugs as part of his probation.

His brothers are his inspiration, especially Riley, who has completed
his drug probation and stayed clean 2 years and 9 months. He is
getting his commercial driver's license now, supporting Boston, his
chubby-cheeked 9-month-old baby.

Jordan is clean too, for more than two years and working for Triple T
Heating & Cooling. He is finished with probation as well.

All of them say associating with friends involved with drugs has to be avoided.

"You can't, it's too hard," said Jordan. "I have a lot of regrets,
putting my family through what I did. Stealing, lying, cheating."

Mechelle knows that there will likely be difficulties in the future,
but she enjoys the good moments. Moments like Boston's giggles and
the Thanksgiving with no police.

Her sons all have jobs, and each morning is the best part. The
vehicles are running -- four pick-up trucks -- to warm up and
Mechelle checks each bedroom to make sure each boy is working, and she smiles.

In December at the monthly PANIC meeting, her boys gave her flowers
and Marie Osmond tickets for her birthday, Riley saying that his mom
"loves us, even when she shouldn't."

Warning signs

The American Council for Drug Education states that there are no hard
and fast rules to identifying drug use, though the key is change.
Here are some changes to watch for:

Physical warning signs

1. Slowed or staggering walk; poor physical coordination.

2. Red, watery eyes; pupils larger or smaller than usual; blank stare.

3. Cold, sweaty palms; shaking hands.

4. Puffy face, blushing or paleness.

5. Smell of substance on breath, body or clothes.

6. Extreme hyperactivity; excessive talkativeness.

7. Runny nose; hacking cough.

8. Nausea, vomiting or excessive sweating.

9. Tremors or shakes of hands, feet or head.

10. Needle marks on lower arm, leg or bottom of feet

Behavioral warning signs

1. Eating habits: Loss of appetite or increase in appetite; change in weight

2. Sleep patterns: Is your child awake or asleep at unusual times?

3. A new crowd: new friends or hang-outs; avoids old friends;
unwilling to talk about or introduce new friends.

4. Performance: drop in grades at school or performance at work;
skips school or work, or regularly arrives late.

5. Mood Swings: oversensitivity, temper tantrums, moodiness,
irritability, or nervousness.

6. Motivation: general lack of motivation, energy, self-esteem, an "I
don't care" attitude. Difficulty paying attention.

7. Secretiveness: Teens are naturally concerned about privacy. But a
child who is excessively secretive may really have something to hide.

8. Dishonesty: Is your child vague about their evening or weekend
plans? Coming up with excuses for being late home? Chronic dishonesty
can be a sign of substance abuse.

9. Cash flow: Unexplained need for money; money, alcohol, cigarettes
or valuables go missing around the home.

10. Drug paraphernalia: Common items include pipes, bongs, cigars,
rolling papers, butane lighters, roach clips, syringes, tourniquets,
burned tinfoil or spoons; as well as products to cover drug odors
such as dryer sheets, air freshener, incense, or towels under the door.

PANIC meetings draw hundreds

Families dealing with drug-addicted members often come to PANIC
meetings for support. Here are some statements from those at the meetings.

"Sammy's an addict and will be until she dies. The only way she could
not be an addict is if she had never started. Where is the point of
no return? If you never cross the fence, you're not going to fall
over the most dangerous mountain." -- Sammy's father, Mark Walker, Salem.

"I think it's countywide. We're just a small town, and it's finally
hitting us. But the PANIC meetings, I can relate to." -- Tina Kinsey,
American Fork

"It's friends. It's neighbors." -- Sebrina Campbell, Spanish Fork

"If you don't have hope, you don't have anything." -- Jessica Erway, Santaquin.

"We're more fortunate than most, because a lot of them have put them
in the ground." -- Kelly Hansen, Payson

"You feellike you're in jail because you have to lock your purse,
your checks. Everytime you want anything you have to go to the safe."
- -- Holly Hansen, Payson

"It (PANIC) educates us. Some of us are so dumb. When you first start
out with an addict, you feel like the only one. Helping them isn't
always giving them what they want. When they are using, you lose your
own son." -- Patrice Whitelock, Santaquin

"My son went a whole year and never touched it and six months later
he was back on heroin." -- Pam Johnson, of the rollercoaster.