A year ago, Manuel Salazar grabbed a bag of methamphetamine as he packed for a trip from San Jose to Palm Springs. He slid a needle under his skin, then tucked a couple of syringes into a pocket. "I was lost," he said. "I went to Palm Springs to get loaded and (hang out) . . . with a girl." But the Lord interrupted his plans to party in the desert, Salazar said. Like many recovering addicts, he says God saved him from addiction. [continues 387 words]
Inland police agencies must demonstrate the severity of the area's meth problem to get help from the feds. It's not a coveted title. But nationwide, police and politicians know the five-word phrase can boost their pleas for help in the fight against methamphetamine. Meth capital of the world. In the 1990s, the label has been applied variously to San Bernardino and Riverside counties, San Diego, the Central Valley, Iowa and Missouri. Each has its own meth problem, and authorities know state and federal money often goes to areas that are hardest-hit. [continues 831 words]
A Sinister Visitor Has Brought Unwelcome Changes To The Small Town Of Newton, Iowa Newton, Iowa -- It is September in Newton, Iowa, and cornfields merge into the horizon, waiting for a combine's whirring blades. Toilet-paper streamers dangle like tinsel in front of high-school football players' homes during homecoming week. Times are pretty good in Newton. Crop prices could be higher, but there is work for just about anyone who wants it in the hometown of the Maytag corporation. [continues 1198 words]
Highway teams in Riverside and San Bernardino counties scan the inerstates for drug traffickers The cars roll by on the interstate, sometimes hundreds of them bumper-to-bumper. Any one might have methamphetamine stashed in a hidden compartment, stashed in a spare tire or taped inside a gas tank. It's up to California Highway Patrol Officer Robert Mendenhall and his drug-sniffing German shepherd, Dino, to pull the right card from the deck. Mendenhall is one of 16 officers from the CHP and other law-enforcement agencies assigned to highway interdiction teams organized by the highway patrol. They cruise interstates in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, stopping drivers for traffic violations. [continues 476 words]
Riverside and San Bernardino counties reportedly supply much of the nation with methamphetamine, ruining health, neighborhoods and families along the way Colombia has long been recognized by narcotics experts as the source nation for cocaine. Thailand is the primary origin of heroin. And the Inland Empire is a "source nation" for methamphetamine, local drug enforcement agents say, particularly in distribution of the white crystalline powder. The stimulant is sweeping across America like a chemical plague, and police in virtually every state can trace some of that supply to the Inland Empire. [continues 3009 words]
The drug’s legacy includes rotted teeth, collapsed veins and ravaged skin. SAN BERNARDINO Flopped on a couch in his darkened San Bernardino secondhand store, Richard Barnett describes three decades of smoking methamphetamine. His rambling stories burst out in bits and pieces and don’t always make sense. “You come here to buy fixable things,” he said, surveying thousands of saws, toys, dishes, photos, car parts, golf clubs, magazines, rocks and appliances in the store. “That’s what I think I’ll call the shop — Fixable Things.” [continues 540 words]
The Fresno area is known for meth labs as well as orchards and vineyards. On the side of a darkened two-lane road in Fresno County, a team dressed in camouflage gathers in a fire department parking lot. For miles around, rows of fruit trees and grapevines are emblems of cash crops that drive the local economy. But orchards and vineyards also harbor a clandestine industry that has been a money-making fixture since it crept into the Central Valley more than a decade ago. [continues 754 words]
Among the side effects of methamphetamine addiction: bankruptcy, job loss, crime and family neglect. Some are lured by the rush of a party drug. Others crave the energy. And some, particularly women, grasp at a shortcut to weight loss. Once snared by methamphetamine, though, addiction steers diverse lives onto similar courses. Shame. Humiliation. Mistreated children. Jail. Families ripped apart. "I try to forgive myself for yesterday," said Lori Warden of Newton, Iowa, who neglected her children while she and a boyfriend injected and made methamphetamine. "I thought, `We can control this. We don't get all weird like those other people." [continues 1588 words]
Being arrested for petty theft was a turning point for Kim Negrete of San Bernardino. It is Wednesday afternoon, and Kim Negrete is one of 10 people battling addiction in a support group at the Inland Behavioral and Health Services center in San Bernardino. Her slavery to methamphetamine began almost 20 years ago when she attended San Gorgonio High School in San Bernardino. Now 38, Negrete says she has been clean since her arrest in April on a warrant for petty theft. [continues 811 words]
Riverside and San Bernardino counties reportedly supply much of the nation with methamphetamine,ruining health, neighborhoods and families along the way Colombia has long been recognized by narcotics experts as the source nation for cocaine. Thailand is the primary origin of heroin. And the Inland Empire is a "source nation" for methamphetamine, local drug enforcement agents say, particularly in distribution of the white crystalline powder. The stimulant is sweeping across America like a chemical plague, and police in virtually every state can trace some of that supply to the Inland Empire. [continues 2983 words]
