METH: America's Home Cooked Menace

Just after midnight on a frigid, snowy January night in Nebraska, police dispatchers took a frantic call. "I feel very threatened," said a young man named Mike, his voice trembling. "My girlfriend and I are lost and freezing." Their black pick-up truck had skidded off an icy road, he explained, leaving them marooned in a wooded field. The dispatchers could hear panic in the young man’s voice. Trying to calm him, the police asked for their whereabouts. "The Mandalay apartment complex, "he told them. But dispatchers were puzzled. The Mandalay was in Omaha. The cell signal was coming from far outside the city. Over the next few hours, the young couple would call police in four Nebraska counties, insisting again and again, that they were at their Omaha apartment at 75th and Poppleton streets.

It was a life-and death race against the clock. Temperatures had plummeted to four degrees below zero. A wicked wind was whipping across the plains. Their very survival hinged on the couple being able to give an accurate description of where they were. But, no less than twenty-two times, Mike and his girlfriend vowed they were at the Mandalay complex. Something was deeply wrong with this couple and it soon became obvious they were hallucinating. Officers tried everything to bring the couple to their senses. To no avail.

The next day, Mike’s frozen, lifeless body was found near the Platte River. It took searchers another six days to find the body of his friend, Janelle. There were both just twenty years old. They died of hypothermia. Their pick-up was found twenty-three miles from the Mandalay apartments, sitting upright, mired in the snow, with a half-tank of gas. Tests on the young couple would discover the real culprit: Methamphetamine.

Getting lost in the wilderness of meth has become an epidemic. Hazelden’s new book, Meth: The Home-Cooked Menace: How a Lethal Drug Is Devastating Our Communities and What’s Being Done About It (Hazelden, October, 2005, $12.95) by Newsweek Chicago Bureau Chief and former The New York Times reporter, Dirk Johnson, captures the shocking rise of methamphetamine popularity, the devastation it is causing in people, families and communities and the real-life solutions that are saving lives.

Just a decade or so ago, methamphetamine was scarcely among the leading drugs of abuse in the nation. Now it has become the nation’s most frightening drug scourge in more than a generation. Police departments in many regions say meth now represents 70 to 80 percent of their drug cases. The reason: Meth is a cheap buzz. Instead of paying a high price for the drug through normal channels, users have learned how to concoct an inexpensive variety with over-the counter chemicals and cold remedies. Federal surveys indicate that a staggering 12 million Americans have used meth. In 2004, more than 9,000 meth labs were seized, compared to just 270 in 1993. In the past decade, the number of meth addicts admitted to treatment centers has grown by more the 500 percent.

The drug known as "crank", "glass", "ice," "boo" and dozens of other monikers is now the second-most commonly used illicit substance, after marijuana, and it is doing staggering harm to families, degrading rural environments, overwhelming police forces, and sapping county social services of its resources.

Methamphetamine is now considered perhaps the most wicked drug ever to hit America. In some states, jails are bursting at the seams with meth offenders, and foster care systems are overburdened as parents can no longer take care of their children. The recent surge in clandestine "cooking" labs in homes, hotel rooms, and even cars has made this toxic stimulant exceptionally affordable, accessible, and dangerous. Methamphetamine abuse is a far-reaching crisis, affecting individuals, families, and communities of all socioeconomic levels.

In his research, Johnson interviewed dozens of addicts, as well as hundreds of others touched by the drug: cops, psychiatrists, social workers, teachers, treatment specialists. Meth started as a West Coast phenomenon, then became the rage of rural regions in the Corn Belt. It’s gotten hot in urban gay communities. But the new frontier, everybody seems to agree, is going to be college campuses. Geographically diverse and socially adventurous, college kids have always been a prime time for drug use. Meth is different than other substances because many people do not even view it as a drug. It is not unlike athletes who take steroids for performance enhancement. Meth is often viewed not so much as a drug but as an aid to living well — a supercharged vitamin. Truck-drivers who need to push the extra miles to pay for the kids braces; moms who work all day and get up with a sick child in the middle of the night; students who must study through the night to cram for exams. People who fall into meth are not stupid, depraved or selfish. They are just like the rest of us: people who want to be better. Meth works — for a while. It makes users more focused, more energetic, more sexually driven, until it takes everything away, including their teeth.

Johnson examines the unprecedented physical, mental, social, and environmental destruction caused by meth use and meth production. He explains why this drug is so harmful, how it differs from other drugs, and how it has devastated individuals, families, and communities. While the facts are decidedly discouraging, Johnson describes successful national, state, and local efforts to fight meth production and prevent addiction, and shares hopeful stories from recovering meth addicts.

About the Author: Dirk Johnson, Chicago Bureau Chief for Newsweek, worked at The New York Times for 16 years. He joined the newspaper in 1985 as a metropolitan reporter in Stamford, CT, and also served as Denver bureau chief. Johnson is a five-time winner of The New York Times Publisher’s Award and in 1994, Simon & Schuster published his book, Biting the Dust: The Wild Ride and Dark Romance of the Rodeo.

Meth: The Home-Cooked Menace: How a Lethal Drug Is Devastating Our Communities and What’s Being Done About It is available at fine bookstores everywhere. Order the book at www.hazelden.org/bookstore or call 1-800-328-9000, 651-213-4577 (fax).

• 1,263 meth production related seizures were made in Arizona over the past four years.

• Small meth labs are being found in houses, apartments, hotel rooms and trailers.

• Production of meth in homes exposes users, children and first responders to toxic gases and hazardous

chemicals.

• A total of 139 cases involving 268 children were

investigated by law enforcement and CPS since the Meth & Kids Initiative was started in 2000.

• CPS took 81% (218) of the children into temporary

custody at the crime scene.

• 85% of children were placed in foster homes.

• About 30-35% of labs seized are residences with

children.

• Between 2000 and 2002, 33% of children found at meth labs tested positive for the drug in Arizona.

• Justice Department statistics show that neglected or abused children are, 50% more likely to be arrested as juveniles, 40% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime as adults and 33% more likely to become

substance abusers. (Source: Office of Attorney General Terry Goddard).

For more information visit www.azag.gov/DEC/. This website is designed to increase statewide public awareness of the prevalence of methamphetamine in Arizona. If you have reason to suspect a meth lab, stay away and immediately contact your local police department or Sheriff’s office, or call 1-877-STP-METH (1-877-787-6384).