Pubdate: Sun, 23 Oct 2005
Source: Daily News Journal  (TN)
230317/1002
Copyright: 2005 Mid-South Publishing Company
Contact:  http://dnj.midsouthnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1709
Author: Maura Satchell

METH & MAYHEM: A PERSONAL STRUGGLE

When Jimmy Earls was arrested more than two years ago, his 3-year-old 
fraternal twins witnessed the whole thing.

"They saw their daddy taken away in handcuffs, and he was just 
crying," Earls' mother, Joyce Tyner, said.

"They wanted to kiss him goodbye," his wife, Jean, recalled.

Now Earls passes his time at the Cannon County Jail, where he's been 
since receiving a 12-year prison sentence in early 2003 for producing 
methamphetamine.

"My wife and I didn't think I'd be in here that long," Earls said, 
adding that they thought he would be in jail for six months, tops, 
and then be released on parole.

This has "let a lot of air out of both of us," he said of the lengthy 
jail time.

He's fortunate, though, to still have the love and support of his family.

Many other families are torn apart by meth addiction, leaving 
personal finances in shatters, careers lost, marriages in ruins and 
children as wards of the state.

Before Earls was a prisoner of the justice system, he was a prisoner 
of another sort.

Earls was a drug user for more than 20 years, using various types of 
drugs including cocaine.

"I tried meth I guess 10 to 15 years ago, and I liked it, so I 
started doing the meth," Earls said.

The Readyville resident had a lifestyle that included partying and 
drug abuse for many years, but then he got married about seven years 
ago and that all changed - for awhile.

"I quit for two years, lived the married life, disassociated myself 
with people that I used to hang out with," he said.

But then he got back into it, gradually, he said.

"I got back drinking again, running with my old buddies again," he 
said, and got back into methamphetamine mainly for the "boost" it 
gave him to do his work as a stone mason.

"I'd do the stone work and (use methamphetamine) to work. I could buy 
just a little bit, a half a gram, and snort a line in the morning, 
and I could work all day," he said.

Earls maintains that although he used methamphetamine for many years, 
he was never an addict until he smoked it one time with a friend.

"I smoked some with him and from then on it was an everyday thing," he said.

Earls said that smoking it or injecting it is what causes the 
addiction, but statistics indicate that it is a highly addictive drug 
no matter how it is introduced into the body, and some people become 
addicted during their first exposure to it.

Law enforcement reports show that there is between a 90 percent and 
95 percent recidivism (or repeat) rate of use for meth addicts, 
making it one of the hardest addictions to overcome.

Earls said he experienced hallucinations and lack of sleep while 
using it, which, he said, led to dangerous driving habits.

"I don't know how many times I'd be driving down the road, feel 
perfectly fine, (and the) next thing I know the man behind me's 
honking the horn. I'd fallen asleep," Earls said.

Earls also described one time he was driving on the backroads of 
Readyville late at night and hallucinated that there was a tractor 
hauling hay in front of him.

"Meth is like the devil, and once it got a hold of him," his mother, 
Joyce Tyner, said. "I was afraid of him when he'd be on that stuff."

It was not too long after becoming hooked on the substance that Earls 
started producing his own meth.

Instead of spending time with his wife, Earls found another passion: 
Making meth.

"He hung out at the barn," Earl's wife said, explaining that doing so 
kept him from bringing any toxic chemicals used in the manufacture of 
meth out of the house where she and the children lived.

"I'm glad he's had enough sense," Jean said.

Studies have shown, however, that toxic compounds that make up meth 
and its by-products can be transmitted by clothing and footwear onto 
carpets, sofas and other furniture. In fact, when a meth lab is 
discovered, the occupants are stripped, washed down and put in fresh 
clothing by hazmat teams.

Producing the meth, Earls said, was an even more addictive habit than 
smoking it.

"After I learned how to make it ... I wasn't making it for the dope, 
I'd give the dope away," he said.

"When I was back there in the back, nine out of 10 people in there 
was for meth, and everyone of them'll tell you the same story - they 
was hooked on making it," the 50-year-old inmate said.

"I didn't want no dope. I mean I didn't lay back there, wanting and 
wishing somebody'd bring some in, so I could get my hands on it. All 
I wanted to was get out and make it," Earls said. "That's something 
that whoever is gonna do something about this needs to understand. 
That's bigger than the addiction."

Earls said he started making meth because he found he was getting 
ripped off, so he learned to make it himself. As meth can be made 
from many household ingredients, it wasn't hard to stock up on the 
necessary supplies.

One friend warned him at the time, "It'll ruin your life." Earls said 
he was right.

He turned his barn into a lab, and estimates the facility was about 
250 to 350 feet from the house where his wife and children stayed.

Within three weeks of starting up his lab, the volatile mixture and 
his inexperience almost cost him his life.

"I caught myself on fire," Earls said.

He explained the meth-making accident happened when he sat too close 
to a kerosene heater in the barn.

"The vapors were coming out of my jar, the jar blew up in my hand. It 
was a wonder it didn't kill me," he said.

Nature was kind to him that night, though.

"It had rained earlier that night (so) there was a big mud hole in 
front of my barn, and I hit it wide open," he said.

After putting the flames out on his body, he ran back in through the 
fire to get containers of water that he had nearby and used them to 
save the barn.

It was 3 a.m. and Earls was in serious pain, with second- and maybe 
third-degree burns on his arms and body. He said he knew that going 
to the emergency room at that time of night would look suspicious.

"I went into the house and meat was hanging off me where it was burnt 
off," he said, showing off scars on his arms.

"I stood it 'til about 5 or 6 that morning before I went to the 
emergency room," he said, noting that he stayed in the shower and let 
the cold water wash over his body until he left for the hospital.

Earls said his wife knew of his injuries because his commotion woke her up.

In the end, he was treated at the local hospital and ordered to go to 
Vanderbilt for more treatment. When he got to Vanderbilt, they had to 
remove the dressings and lotion that had covered the burned areas, he said.

"They had to scrub all that off, and you know, of course, they gave 
me couple of shots, but even with that, I couldn't sleep" because of 
the pain, Earls said.

He said that the physicians spoke of skin-grafting, but he declined 
further treatment.

Recovering with bandages and open wounds, he was unable to do 
anything for about three weeks, he said.

"I learned a valuable lesson there," he said. "The next time I made 
it, I went to Wal-Mart and bought me two fire extinguishers."

While using and cooking meth, Earls' health took a beating. He said 
he lost 40 pounds, and meth damaged his skin and teeth and aged him.

Earls was arrested on May 14, 2003 when former Cannon County 
sheriff's detective Charlie Wilder and a Tennessee Bureau of 
Investigation agent showed up at Earls' Readyville homestead.

"It's the biggest lab I've ever seen - gallons and gallons of 
chemicals and hundreds of boxes of Sudafed, filters by the cases and 
paper towels by the cases," Wilder told The DNJ in 2003.

Ferguson Harbor, the hazardous waste removal company that was 
contracted by the Drug Enforcement Agency to remove the waste, had to 
make two trips to dispose of the 30 30-gallon garbage bags filled 
just with empty ephedrine boxes, and the rest of the toxic waste.

For the first six months of his incarceration, Earls said he spent 
every waking hour looking forward to cooking up another batch of meth 
and swapping meth recipes with other inmates, even though he knew his 
wife and young children were out there and needed him. He said he was 
prepared, if released, to go back to cooking the stuff.

"That's the hold it gets on you. It wasn't doing the drug, it was 
making it," he said.

"When I was caught, I told Charlie straight up, I'm glad you stopped 
me, 'cause it's either here or you end up in the graveyard," Earls said.

Earls stayed out in the barn for days at a time, without seeing his 
wife and children, but had a phone to communicate with his wife. 
There was tension between them at times, he noted, and he recalled 
one occasion that showed just how seriously he was addicted.

"She had the kids loaded up, she had her bags packed, she was going 
back to Florida. I said, 'I can't stop, let me make one more batch, 
and then we'll talk about it,'" he said.

The pair are still married, and Earls recognizes that Jean put up 
with a lot during his addiction. He recalled that he had a short fuse 
and would get angry over minor or irrational things. He also forgot 
so many things that she began to carry around a tape recorder to 
replay certain discussions they had that he never remembered.

"I've got a wife that's really stuck by me," Earls said.

Jean visits him at the jail, he said, and continues to support him.

"He's as talented as he can be," Jean said of her husband.

To pass the time at the Cannon County jail, Earls constructs stone 
walls, pillars and other masonry items as needed for the County Jail 
and for other departments in the county where he now works as a trustee.

"He can be the nicest guy," Wava Curry, a sergeant at the Cannon 
County jail, said of Earls.

Earls will know within the next 10 days if his latest petition for 
parole has been approved, and if he can go back to his wife and 
children, and, hopefully, start over again.

And while Jean remains married to Earls out of love, she said "the 
children gave her the strength."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman