Special report: Covering
the meth epidemic in rural America
July 2005
“How long will meth
stay in my breast milk?” That’s what “Tina,”
the main subject of The Deseret News’
six-part series
on rural America’s methamphetamine abuse, asked a Utah Poison
Control Hotline in a panicked call. “Twenty-four hours,”
she was told. Her infant son subsisted on baby formula the next
day.
The series in the Salt Lake City newspaper offers
another haunting vignette of meth use: “When I was using,
the kids knew what to do if they came across a needle,”
said Susan Martin, 32, who was just paroled from Utah State Prison
in October and is the mother of three. “They knew what to
do when Mommy was dope sick,” Susan continued. “They
knew how long I needed to sleep. The kids knew what the paraphernalia
was all about; the kids knew how to watch for the cops.”
Such are the particulars of covering methamphetamine
– a task that occupies an intriguing niche in contemporary
journalism. Meth is a problem with both a genesis and fallout
in rural areas. Meth first came into journalistic consciousness
when biker gangs on the West coast began selling it in the early
1970’s. Easily made from common ingredients like lantern
fuel, match books, and the decongestant Sudafed, meth spread easily
across the country. Called names like hillbilly cocaine, crank,
and crystal, meth appeals to a rural constituency because it’s
cheap, easy to manufacture at home, and requires no special equipment
or expertise. Now, according to a major series by The
Oregonian, more than 1.3 million people in the United
States use meth.
This special edition of The Rural Blog focuses on
the meth problem in rural areas, how journalists have covered
it and how they might continue to follow it. Covered here will
be meth’s effects on rural people and property, guidelines
for instructing regular citizens on how to spot meth production,
and an analysis of government response to what some consider the
rural meth epidemic.
Among the many online resources for covering meth
are two reports from the Council of State Governments.
To read about meth's role in rural America, click
here. To read about how states are adopting a multi-faceted
approach to the problem, click
here.
The rising cost of fighting
meth
"A decade after meth took hold in the heartland,
the inexpensive, highly addictive home-brewed stimulant is straining
rural law enforcement resources to the breaking point," writes
Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times. (Read
more)
"It's in the Midwest that the drug has most severely tested
the justice system, in part because sheriff's deputies, jail wardens
and crime lab technicians in rural counties don't have the resources
or the experience to deal with a drug epidemic," reports
Simon. "Officers struggle to subdue addicts so high on meth
that even a Taser won't stop them. They complain of a justice
system clogged with so many meth cases that it can take a year
after an arrest for prosecutors to file charges."
Just entering a meth lab is a costly affair for investigators.
In the Midwest, where meth is mainly homemade, explosive chemicals
are being cooked and stores in makeshift labs, according to this
article printed on June 27, 2005. Many law enforcement agencies
are spending thousands of dollars for equipment and personnel.
"To enter an active lab, a detective must wear a hazmat
suit, a respirator and a $2,500 self-contained breathing apparatus,"
notes Simon. "Once the investigative work is done, deputies
must guard the site until cleanup crews arrive. That can take
up to 36 hours."
Meth’s effects on people
“Meth addicts interface with multiple public
agencies at enormous public expense: criminal justice, human services,
environmental health, child protection and emergency medicine,"
Carol Falkowski writes in
the journal Spectrum. She goes on to detail the
effects of methamphetamine use on the human body. After using
meth, a person “may be in an altered state for eight to
12 hours. After the initial euphoric 'rush,' the behavioral effects
include heightened concentration, increased alertness, high energy,
wakefulness and loss of appetite.”
Meth can also work as an aphrodisiac, as described
in an Associated Press available here.
“Who wouldn't want to use it? You lose weight and you have
great sex,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Laymon said at
a meeting of Tennessee's meth task force. But meth's aphrodisiac
effects are short-lived. While meth may at first “makes
you want sex all the time,” as Alabama obstetrician Mary
Holley claims, meth users can lose the ability to have sex at
all after only six months of use. And national drug czar John
Walters notes the physical deterioration meth users often undergo:
“Hair falls out, teeth fall out. That's not sexy.”
Meth is a neurotoxin, a chemical that ultimately
damages cognition and memory. Consequently, Falkowski cautions
that meth use “places an individual at heightened risk of
long-term, possibly irreversible behavioral, cognitive, and psychological
problems over the course of a lifetime.”
Falkowski paints an even more grotesque picture
of the effects of meth addiction and its long-term effects on
users. Meth addicts binge on larger and larger quantities of the
drug as they become reliant on it. As addicts binge, they typically
go extended periods of time -- often days on end -- without eating
or sleeping. These binges result in a cycle of physical deterioration
that occurs rapidly, much more rapidly than that associated with
addiction to other drugs. Prolonged addiction, Falkowski says,
usually results in methamphetamine psychosis, where victims “see
things that aren't really there, including elusive 'shadow people'”and
a psychological state where “meth addicts believe that everyone
is 'out to get them,' even innocent strangers or inanimate objects.”
Along with the long-term health effects of meth
use, injuries associated with meth use and production add to its
danger, the Charleston
Daily Mail reports. “Methamphetamine producers
risk not only legal troubles, but also the safety of themselves
and their families,” George Gannon writes. He reports that
meth users face an increased risk injury due to fire as well as
exposure to hazardous fumes and chemicals.
Treating meth addiction "may be one of the
most difficult challenges in the field of substance abuse recovery,"
Lee Ann Prescott of the Smyth County (Va.) News and Messenger
reported
in a lengthy, well-researched package. "The drug’s
complex array of severe effects, coupled with a changing health
care industry, have left treatment professionals seeking new answers."
In one sidebar, Prescottt reported, "Police officers know
it, but hesitate to say it publicly: Many people begin using methamphetamine
because they like what it does to their sexuality. 'Women follow
meth,' a local police officer admitted."
Meth’s effects on rural
property
Meth has
a disproportionate effect on rural areas because of its effects
on rural property. Meth labs, the makeshift facilities where the
drug is produced, generate toxic waste products that can foul
surrounding land and render property uninhabitable, the Ashtabula
Star Beacon reports.
“These labs are polluting the communities where they crop
up” and damage homes “making them un-sellable,”
Shelley Terry writes.
Property owners in many states are trying to tackle
the problem by acting proactively and developing ways to repair
the effects of meth production in houses. Ellis Eskew of Chattanooga’s
WDEF-TV reports
Tennessee police are advising landlords in the state to require
tenants to sign agreements saying that the tenant will no use
or produce meth while staying on the property and be responsible
for the damages if they violate the agreement. Police in Chattanooga
also hold frequent meth education seminars.
Iowa’s KWQC reports
that state has issued state guidelines for the cleanup of meth
damaged property that “include airing out the property,
replacing carpet, cleaning plumbing and ventilation systems and
contacting law enforcement.” The State Journal
of West Virginia reports
on John Simon, owner of Astech Corp., a Charleston-based indoor
environmental remediation company. He claims to be one of the
few West Virginians certified to remediate meth damage in homes.
Remediation, the article claims, “can be as simple as ripping
up carpet and removing old drapes, or as elaborate as replacing
drywall and flooring.”
Guidelines
for spotting meth production
The Record of Leitchfield, Ky.,
published a meth series that included advice on how to both spot
meth users and meth labs. Users, Stephanie Hornback writes, are
characterized by paranoia, extreme weight loss, teeth grinding
or loss, open sores on their faces and arms, incessant talking,
irritability or violent behavior, repetitious behaviors such as
picking at skin, false sense of confidence, and severe depression.
Her list of signs of meth labs is much longer.
Laura Skillman
of the University of Kentucky reports a similar
list in an article for local newspapers, detailing Kentucky’s
“Walk Your Land” program. The program encourages rural
landowners to regularly check their land for meth production they
may not be aware of. “The components are things that we
use in everyday life — gallon fruit jars, aquarium tubing,
plastic spoons, plastic bowls, glassware,” Skillman quotes
Cheyenne Albro, director of the Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force.
“Because they often overlooked as being a lab when someone
sees them in the woods or locates them, they don’t realize
the dangers associated with them. They think it’s just a
bag of trash.” Albro also cautioned people to not handle
suspected materials from suspected meth labs, but rather contact
the proper authorities.
Government response to meth
Official response to the meth epidemic has taken
many forms. In some states, as reported
by Oregon’s Springfield News, a new law
requires pharmacies to place pseudoephedrine-based cold tablets
behind the counter and to require photo identification to buy
them. Pseudoephedrine is a necessary ingredient in meth production.
This new law was patterned after a similar initiative from Oklahoma.
Oklahoma reported a 60 percent drop in meth lab seizures in the
first three months after the law was enacted.
The Deseret News poses the question
“Does Utah need a meth czar?” in an editorial
by Dennis Romboy and Lucinda Dillon Kinkead. Here the authors
make the case that meth use is so pervasive in Utah and has so
many social and policy ramifications that a state figurehead may
be necessary. But elsewhere, some officials believe that combating
meth is more dependent on local action than state action –
an important point for rural journalists to ponder.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
claims that approximately 80 percent of meth in America is produced
outside the country. But Cumberland County ( Tenn.) Sheriff Butch
Burgess, in an article
in the Crossville Chronicle, questioned how relevant
the federal government may be to the meth problem. “Meth
is so different from everything else, it's hard to bring in the
DEA or TBI,” the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Burgess
said. “It has to be solved from the community level.”
He added, “A lot of this stuff can be done on a community
level without having to ask the state for any more dollars."
At least 20 states are considering
2005 legislation that would restrict access to over-the-counter
medicines and other goods that can be used to make methamphetamine,
The Los Angeles Times reported.
National Public Radio reported
on small towns' response to meth and other drug problems.
Stories by and for broadcasters,
too
National Public Radio and its rural
correspondent, Howard Berkes, have done some of the best broadcast
reporting on meth, highlighted by a series of reports in the summer
of 2004 but dating back to 2000.
This year's reports have included "Crackdown on Cold Medicine
Helps Curb Meth Labs," aired on Nov.
20; "Meth A Growing Menace in Rural America," Aug.
12; "Drug Plague in Rural U.S. Creating 'Meth Orphans',"
July
8; and "Meth Abuse Part of the Beat for Rural Sheriff,"
July
7. The network's "Talk of the Nation" examined the
meth epidemic on March
3. The coverage also included a 2001 report
on meth labs in national forests and a 2002 story
on a meth-related crime wave hitting farms on New York.
Links to other coverage
Here are some examples to consider when covering
meth:
The (Louisville) Courier-Journal
series on meth in Kentucky and Indiana: For day one, click
here. For day two, click here.
For day three, click here.
For an interactive display of the drug's eastward march through
the state, click here.
The Cherokee County ( Ala.) Herald
reported on the dangers of meth.
Louisville’s WLKY reported
that an eighty-eight year old woman fought off two would-be robbers
on the run from meth charges by brandishing her cane.
The Albert Lea Tribune featured
a series on meth’s effects on Minnesota, ending in this
editorial.
The Navajo Hopi Observer reported
in the documentary ‘G’ detailing meth abuse in Native
American communities.
The East Texas Review reported
that Texas Gov. Rick Perry is sending a message to meth producers.
Savannah’s WSAV reported
that Savannah SWAT team members have begun using special chemical
suits complete with air packs and gas masks to raid suspected
meth labs.
WTWO reported
that a Terre Haute, Ind., day care operator and an alleged accomplice
were arrested for dealing meth.
And Samantha Reynolds of Eastern Kentucky’s
Paintsville Herald added to her coverage with
a poem,
titled “Ms. Crystal Meth.” It concluded:
Now that you’ve met me
What will you do?
Will you try me or not?
It’s all up to you.
I can show you more misery
Than words can tell.
Come, take my hand.
Let me lead you to Hell.
