Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 Source: Huntsville Times (AL) Copyright: 2002 The Huntsville Times Contact: http://www.htimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/730 Author: Laranda Nichols, Times Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) TASK FORCE DISCUSSES WAYS TO STOP METH USE Counselors Say Those Addicted To This Drug Most Difficult To Treat SCANT CITY - Experts who have faced patients with cocaine, heroin and other addictions told the Marshall County Meth Task Force on Wednesday that methamphetamine is the most difficult to treat. "I have never seen anything like this deal with meth," counselor Randy Childers of the Family Life Center told the meeting at Brindlee Mountain Middle School. "It is a sub-culture within a sub-culture." Terry Nelson of Mountain Lakes Behavioral Healthcare said one problem in treating meth addicts is the irreversible brain damage the drug does after someone uses it two or three times. Caustic chemicals like brake cleaner, ammonia, ethyl and grain alcohol, lye and muriatic acid are used to make the stimulant, much of the time in homemade labs set up in addicts' homes. Nelson said a recent study showed meth users have more trouble with recall, concentration and the ability to think quickly than cocaine users. Another problem is that many meth users are misdiagnosed as suffering from other problems. "Many are paranoid schizophrenics," he said. "The first meth addict I saw a few years ago was in an ER, a man who had attempted suicide. He said the CIA was doing mind control experiments on him." Not long after that he encountered two more meth addicts, he said, and both complained the CIA was doing the experiments on them. "Meth clients are the most difficult we have seen," Nelson said. "Every one I saw last week said he made his own (meth). It is like modern moonshine." District Attorney Steve Marshall organized the task force of people from industry, education, health care, law enforcement and other areas. Since the group last met in early December, he said, his office has handled 64 drug cases, 70 percent of them involving crystal meth. Marshall has asked the task force to come up with some ways to fight the growth of meth use. A panel of educators told the task force about the programs they use to combat drug abuse in the county's four school systems. Most agreed that stiff penalties for having drugs on campus have helped but said students still use drugs before and after school. Instruction, school resource officers on campuses and other programs help, but several superintendents said the solution eventually falls back on the home. All say they encourage parental involvement but have difficulty achieving it on a large-scale basis. Arab City Schools several years ago hired a firm to survey students about drug use. The system also gives drug tests randomly to about half of its student athletes, said Superintendent Edwin Cooley. Because peer pressure is a key cause of initial drug use, Cooley said, students in the health occupations classes at the high school each year go to speak to younger students about drugs. "That is positive peer pressure," he said. Coach and health instructor Laura Leak of Guntersville High School said most students who talk about drugs mention meth and ecstasy. "Kids will confide to me that 'he is on X' or meth," Leak said. One task force member suggested a countywide survey to determine the extent of the problem. Charles Edmonds, principal of DAR High School at Grant, said the school used to have a problem with drugs in school but now students wait until after school hours. "At 3 p.m. they know where they can go" to get drugs, he said. Some at the meeting talked about holding town meetings to talk about drugs with parents. But Cooley said such a meeting in Arab several months ago drew only about 50 people and 40 or so of those were educators. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake