Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jan 2005
Source: Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN)
Copyright: 2005 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
Contact:  http://www.knoxnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/226
Author: Martha Irvine, Associated Press

EXPERTS SAY METH BECOMING 'MAJOR THREAT' IN U.S. CITIES

CHICAGO - Already known as a rural scourge, methamphetamine is becoming a
problem in a number of U.S. cities.

Meetings of the 12-step group Crystal Meth Anonymous have increased in
Chicago from one per week a few years ago to five a week. In the Atlanta
area, methamphetamine users account for the fastest-growing segment of
addicts seeking treatment. Rehabilitation centers there are seeing an uptick
in the number of women meth addicts, while officials in Minneapolis-St. Paul
say they're treating an alarming number of meth users younger than 18.

=09 "Most people just think it happens in the farmlands and the prairies or
out back behind the barn," said Carol Falkowski, director of research
communications at the Hazelden Foundation in Minnesota. But that's not the
case anymore.

Falkowski found that meth addicts now represent about 10 percent of patients
admitted to drug treatment programs in the Twin Cities, compared with 7.5
percent a year ago and about 3 percent in 1998. About a fifth of those meth
users who sought help in the last year were minors.

She and other experts who track urban drug trends for the National Institute
on Drug Abuse are meeting this week in Long Beach, Calif., to present their
findings. Some have noted a big jump in the use of meth - particularly in
its potent crystal form - in the past six months to a year.

"It's the new major drug threat," said Jim Hall, director of the Center for
the Study and Prevention of Substance Abuse at Nova Southeastern University
in Florida. He monitors drug use for NIDA in Fort Lauderdale and Miami,
where crystal meth is often more sought after than Ecstasy and cocaine.

"Here, it's almost like the early days of cocaine, when cocaine was the
chic, expensive champagne of street drugs," said Hall, noting that many
users come to Miami's South Beach strip in search of the purest, most
expensive meth.

Methamphetamine - long a problem on the West Coast - made its way across the
country in the last decade, often taking hold in rural areas, where it's
usually made because the process creates a noticeable stench.
Drug-enforcement officials have said that mass quantities are being shipped
cross country from "super labs" in the Southwest and Mexico.

Experts say the drug started to catch on in urban areas in the club and rave
scenes and sometimes among particular populations, such as gay men. That's
been the case in such cities as Washington, D.C., and Chicago, said Thomas
Lyons, a research associate with the Great Cities Institute at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. Often, he said, meth use has been
associated with increases in sexually transmitted diseases.

One recovering addict who helps organize Chicago's Crystal Meth Anonymous
meetings confirms that the gatherings are frequented by gay men, but he said
that, increasingly, he's seeing people from other backgrounds.

"It's become more common that I cross paths with people who say, 'This is my
drug of choice,' " said Mike, a 34-year-old former meth user whose
organization does not reveal last names to protect group members' privacy.

Experts elsewhere said their populations of meth users are diversifying,
too.

Claire Sterk, an Emory University professor who tracks Atlanta's numbers for
NIDA, said that while meth users there traditionally have been white, there
are early signs that meth is making its way into the city's black and
Hispanic communities. Experts in other cities also have noted that some
young women are using methamphetamine as a way to lose weight. 
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