Pubdate: Wed, 09 Jan 2002
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2002 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Diane Brooks
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

SNOHOMISH COUNTY TAKES AIM AT METH ADDICTION

EVERETT - Ashley considers herself a normal teen.

She didn't start partying until age 16, when she began drinking and smoking 
pot with her friends. It's what everyone does, she says.

Then one night somebody offered her a line of methamphetamine.

Ashley's father, who lives in California, is a meth addict. As she pondered 
her choices, she thought, "That's why my dad can't see me," the Marysville 
youth told a ballroom full of strangers yesterday. "I just wanted to try 
it, to see what the feeling is. I got very addicted."

So do 96 percent of other people who try it, according to health statistics.

Meth - also known as speed, crystal and crank - is one of the most brutally 
addictive drugs, and its popularity is surging.

To combat its growth, Snohomish County leaders yesterday sponsored a 
methamphetamine summit, gathering a cross section of 435 community members 
to learn about the crisis and to brainstorm strategies for responding.

"We know where the war must be fought, and it must be fought here," county 
Prosecutor Jim Krider told the educators, social-service providers, police, 
health professionals, students and civic leaders.

No hard data exist, locally or nationally, on the extent of methamphetamine 
use. But social-service experts estimate about 2,000 of the county's 
594,000 residents are hooked.

Nearly 60 meth labs - highly dangerous, explosive operations - were 
discovered within the county last year, up from 10 in 1999.

Two-thirds of crimes committed in the county are related to meth, Krider 
said, including burglaries and thefts that raise money to buy the drug. 
Nearly 65 percent of state Child Protective Services cases involve parents 
addicted to meth, said Cammy Hart-Anderson, a county human-services 
coordinator.

"Once the criminals cook this stuff, there's not a person in this room 
that's not affected," said County Executive Bob Drewel, who led the summit 
at the Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel in Everett.

Ashley quit meth, enduring an agonizing withdrawal period, when she 
realized she might not graduate from high school. "I had way too many 
dreams and way too many goals," said Ashley, now 17. When she confessed her 
secret to her mother and stepfather, they were incredulous.

That's typical, said Bridgette Perrigove, a psychologist with the Granite 
Falls School District. The symptoms can be so hard to identify that about 
one-third of parents contacted about their children's possible meth 
problems insist it's not possible.

Meth is an upper, so when students first begin taking it they perform well. 
They clean up their rooms, turn in all their homework assignments.

But then meth shows its darker side. Users get depressed and paranoid, 
sleep through class, lose weight and their skin becomes blemished with acne 
and ulcers.

Summit participants included a group of 11 middle-school students from 
Granite Falls. In their community, the pressure to do drugs starts in 
seventh grade, they said. Most teenagers smoke marijuana, they said, and 
meth use is common too. Some kids do drugs with their parents, they said.

Dakoda Stefenson, 14, said he's never used drugs, although he was 7 the 
first time he turned down marijuana.

He planned to take back to Granite Falls everything he learned yesterday, 
to help set a good example for the younger kids in his school.

"I just want to let them know once you start you're probably not going to 
stop," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth