Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 2004
Source: Indianapolis Star (IN)
Contact:  2004 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc.
Website: http://www.starnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/210
Author: Andrea Neal
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LOOMING METH EPIDEMIC FILLS JAILS, DESTROYS FAMILIES

As if Indiana's economy didn't have enough problems, a new one looms with 
potentially disastrous consequences for taxpayers.

An epidemic in methamphetamine use and production is taxing law enforcement 
agencies, pushing hundreds of children into the child protection system and 
filling up county jails. The chilling facts:

   Indiana ranks sixth in the nation in the number of meth labs seized by 
police, according to U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, who held a Feb. 6 field hearing 
on the subject in Elkhart.

   State police shut down 1,260 drug labs in 2003, up from 998 in 2002 and 
just six in 1996.

   Almost 200 children were present in households where meth arrests took 
place last year. In most instances, those arrested also faced child neglect 
charges and their children were funneled into an already overloaded Family 
and Social Services Administration.

"It's going to bankrupt southwest Indiana," fears state Rep. Alan Chowning, 
D-Sullivan. "We have to figure out some way to slow down the epidemic."

Chowning has sponsored a bill in the legislature establishing a task force 
to develop a plan for combating meth abuse and manufacturing in Indiana. 
House Bill 1136 passed the House 92-0, and is before the Senate, where its 
principal sponsor is David C. Long, R-Fort Wayne.

Be assured, meth is not just a southwest Indiana problem. A scan of 
newspaper headlines reveals cases from Elkhart to Evansville, Terre Haute 
to Richmond, Fort Wayne to Indianapolis.

In two of the more recent, a multi-agency drug task force on Feb. 6 raided 
a home in Angola suspected of being a meth lab. Police found meth and 
anhydrous ammonia, a common agricultural fertilizer that is the drug's main 
ingredient. On Feb. 5, State Police charged a Perry County couple with drug 
and child neglect charges after officers found in their home more than 25 
grams of meth and tools used in making it. The couple's two children were 
placed with relatives.

Clandestine labs in Indiana are just one source of the drug. On Jan. 27, 
U.S. District Judge Larry McKinney in Indianapolis sentenced Mexican 
national Ramon Montero to 20 years in prison for running the largest meth 
ring ever found in Indiana. The operation trafficked more than $156 million 
in the substance in a single year.

Experts say the problem will get worse now that the price of meth has 
dropped precipitously. Bill Wargo of the Elkhart County Prosecutor's Office 
testified at the Elkhart hearing that the price of one pound had fallen 
from $7,500 last summer to $4,000 last month. As recently as 2002, the Drug 
Enforcement Administration pegged the street price at $16,000 to $23,000 a 
pound.

Vanderburgh County is already expecting another record year. The Evansville 
Courier & Press reported last week that narcotics officers had dismantled 
an average of one meth lab every three days in January, on pace to exceed 
Vigo County's state-high 108 lab tear-downs last year.

Vigo County, meanwhile, has launched a phone line so residents who suspect 
neighbors are involved in making or selling the stimulant can leave 
anonymous tips monitored by the Vigo County Drug Task Force.

Methamphetamine causes an intense rush when smoked or injected 
intravenously and a sense of euphoria when used orally or sniffed. It has 
been shown to damage brain cells and even cause neurological symptoms 
similar to those seen in Parkinson's disease. If the dangers of ingesting 
it aren't enough, its manufacture in makeshift labs that "cook" its 
ingredients in an explosive stew poses extreme risk to those present and to 
neighbors.

The economic implications are enormous because of its ripple effect through 
criminal justice, child welfare and medical systems. There are more 
arrests, more trials and more people going to prison, as well as more child 
protection cases. In addition, police are struggling to find the money to 
clean up meth sites, which can cost $1,000 a pop if cooking has occurred 
and disposal specialists are called in. There's also the cost of fighting 
fires when explosions occur, and treating human injuries.

The goal of Chowning's bill is to attack the problem "from all possible 
angles," ranging from addiction treatment to public education to increasing 
criminal penalties.

Remember the crack epidemic of the 1980s, which destroyed so many families 
and harmed the brains of so many babies? This has the potential to be much 
worse.

Neal is a teacher at St. Richard's School in Indianapolis and an adjunct 
scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom