Pubdate: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) Copyright: 2005 Asheville Citizen-Times Contact: http://www.citizen-times.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863 Author: Jordan Schrader Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) SUMMIT AIMS TO CURB METH TREND Meth becomes dangerous before it's ever made. A toddler in a home being used as a meth lab comes across some lye and puts a little in his or her mouth. By the time Dr. Cynthia Brown and her colleagues see him, his mouth and tongue are severely burned. Brown's work with such victims at Mission Children's Clinic is one link in Western North Carolina's efforts to deal with methamphetamine addiction. Wednesday offers a chance for the public to see how the links fit together. A summit at Western Carolina University brings together experts from law enforcement, social services, medicine, government and the media. They share a determination to curb the growing number of meth labs in North Carolina -- at least 289 destroyed so far this year, and a total last year of 322. The experts will share knowledge and solutions with each other and the public. "The more aware the community is, the more likely they are to recognize that there's a lab next door," Brown said. She's on a list of speakers that includes Attorney General Roy Cooper and Principal Chief Michell Hicks of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Leaders and experts will learn how their counterparts elsewhere in the state have succeeded, said Gordon Mercer, director of the university's Public Policy Institute that organizes the summit. "Some communities have done a better job in terms of integrating approaches and working together," Mercer said, pointing to task forces in Rutherford County as a model approach. The Public Policy Institute devotes its annual forum to a critical problem in Western North Carolina. It publishes a report on the issue after the summit. Western Carolina University students benefit from organizing and attending the summit, Mercer said. "Students become involved in some of the critical issues of our time period," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman