Pubdate: Sun, 05 May 2002
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2002 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Larry Bacon
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METHAMPHETAMINE TAKES LIVES, DESTROYS FAMILIES

JESSE ESTABROOK was a tough kid. He stood 6 feet 2, weighed 190 pounds and 
played linebacker on defense and fullback on offense for the Coquille High 
School football team.

When he carried the ball, he would try to run right through anyone between 
him and the goal posts. "He loved contact," says his 78-year-old 
grandfather, Don Radford. "That was what he liked about football; you hit 
somebody and you don't get in trouble for it."

Jesse lived with his grandfather and grandmother, Jean Radford, during his 
high school years. They loved him like their own son. They watched him play 
a lot of football and take a lot of hard hits. But none was as hard as the 
hit they took last Nov. 28 when a sheriff's deputy came to their home to 
tell them Jesse had died in a Coos County Jail cell at age 18.

The deputy told the grandparents it was a seizure but they learned later 
that Jesse had been picked up on an assault charge that morning for 
punching somebody the night before. He was carrying some plastic bags 
filled with methamphetamine when he was arrested and, while sitting in the 
back of the patrol car, he ate the meth before officers could find it.

An autopsy showed the contents of three to four bags in his stomach, an 
amount nearly 200 times that considered to be lethal.

Jesse probably thought he was tough enough to swallow that much meth, Don 
Radford says, but he was wrong.

In Search Of A 'High'

Meth kills, as more and more people in Coos County and other parts of 
Oregon are finding out. And when it doesn't kill, it often destroys its 
abusers' lives and the lives of those around them.

Methamphetamine has been part of the Coos County drug scene since the 
1980s. Some speculate that people began turning to the drug when local 
timber and fishing jobs began to disappear and unemployment soared. Now, 
authorities say many of the children of meth abusers also are hooked on it.

Meth is cheap, plentiful and easy to come by in Coos County. You can buy a 
quarter-gram bag - enough for one hit - for about $20. It's usually a 
powder that varies in colors from milkish white to yellow to light brown, 
and it has a strong chemical smell. It can be snorted, injected or, in 
chunk form, smoked.

Those who have used it say the first use produces an intensely pleasurable 
rush and that the "high" from one dose can last up to 24 hours.

With repeated use, users find that they need to use more and more to 
achieve the same rush. They switch to injections to get it into their 
bloodstream more quickly, and the injections become more frequent as they 
struggle to maintain their high.

Abusers often binge to stay high for days at a time, injecting every two or 
three hours, never sleeping. They're full of seemingly boundless energy. 
Near the end of the binge comes a "tweaking" phase when aggression, 
paranoia or depression sets in.

The body finally gives out and crashes, and the user might sleep almost 
around the clock for days at a time. Withdrawal follows the crash, along 
with depression, possible thoughts of suicide, and an intense craving for 
more meth. That craving can lead to more injections and start the cycle all 
over again.

Extended use can lead to total dependency, former users say. " I needed it 
to survive," says Lisa Culver Lindsay, 36, of Coos Bay, who started using 
meth when she was 19 and managed to quit it for good after a year in jail 
that ended last October. "I couldn't get out of bed without it."

Addiction Leads To 'Ugliness'

Meth addicts lose weight and often look gaunt. They become indifferent 
about their personal appearance and the binge-and-bust cycle keeps them 
from holding down jobs, making it difficult for them to meet their family 
respon-sibilities.

Drug enforcement authorities say methamphetamine can create addicts more 
quickly than most drugs and leads to criminal behavior because addicts 
often steal to support their habit or commit violent acts while tweaking.

In his 25 years with the Oregon State Police in Coos Bay, Detective Dale 
Oester has seen a lot of the ugliness resulting from meth abuse. In 
addition to domestic disturbances and theft - first from family members, 
then from the larger community - it also triggers violent tendencies that 
lead to assaults and sometimes homicides, he says.

People can also do "horrendous sexually deviant things" while under the 
influence of meth, he says, some of which involve children.

Nancylee Stewart, a child welfare services manager with the state Community 
Human Services office in Coos County, says she has seen it all: a meth 
abuser's neglected 3-year-old child wandering down a major road, babies 
lagging in physical and mental development because their mothers used meth 
while pregnant, children exposed to toxic chemicals in meth labs, kids 
slapped around by parents who are tweaking.

Seeing those kinds of things causes anger, grief and stress for people in 
her agency, Stewart says. What keeps child welfare workers going, she says, 
is the thought that they may be able to rescue such children, improve their 
lives, and maybe help meth-addicted parents shake their habit and put their 
families back together again.

Sometimes, she says, the workers know that the happiest ending possible is 
to permanently remove children from a meth-shattered home and put them up 
for adoption.

Support Groups Can Help

Why do people start using a drug with such a potential for destruction?

To get a new high. To escape an abusive relationship. To make up for some 
past hurt. Even to lose weight. Those are some of the reasons given by 
former users now participating in support groups to help them stay "clean."

Lisa Lindsay quit meth and returned to it numerous times over the years. 
She gave up one of her babies to her mother and periodically lost two 
others to child welfare authorities. She said faith in God finally helped 
her get and stay clean. Two of her children remain with her.

Lindsay helped start a faith-based support group at North Bend's 
Celebration Center, where she is a volunteer. Sexually abused as a child, 
she says methamphetamine initially "filled something inside me that nothing 
else filled." And when it didn't do that anymore, she found herself too 
addicted to quit.

Emery Sutherland, 21, also of Coos Bay, just got out of prison after 
serving time for burglary and theft. He stole to support a meth habit 
developed at age 14. Now a member of the Celebration Center support group 
and one other group, he has vowed to stay clean.

Sutherland was using marijuana when some friends urged him to try meth, and 
he says he loved being able to stay wired for days. It pains him now to 
realize that his meth use led him to cut his family out of his life for 
several years, develop a criminal record and do things totally out of 
character.

He and a "crime partner" used to use billy clubs to beat people and steal 
their dope, he says, and sometimes while walking down the street, he would 
punch a stranger just for something to do.

Jesse Takes A Wrong Turn

No one is sure how long Jesse Estabrook had been involved with meth. Oester 
says he had been known to use illegal drugs and the amount of meth he 
ingested the day he died was consistent with what a dealer would have.

Jesse was doing well in school and seemed to enjoy life, his grandparents 
say, until he injured his shoulder during his junior year and found out he 
couldn't play football his senior year.

"He loved football," Radford says. "When he found out he couldn't play, he 
didn't care about nothin' or nobody. I never seen a kid go down like he did."

The grandfather says he had been concerned that Jesse might be abusing 
drugs since he came to live with him at age 13. He asked Jesse about drugs, 
told him nothing good could come from them, even required him to take 
random urinalysis tests to detect drug use.

Jesse was a good boy, the grandparents say, but he had a temper. One day 
last October, he became angry and threw a gallon of milk at his 
grandfather's feet. "It scared me," Radford says.

He called the sheriff's office and had Jesse picked up. The young man went 
to court, and the judge ordered him to stay away from his grandparents' 
home. Although there was concern that he might be a danger to them, Radford 
says they didn't fear Jesse and wanted him back.

Jesse started staying with friends, here and there, Radford says. He 
dropped out of Coquille High and opted for an alternative school to finish 
the one class he needed to graduate.

The meth involvement may have started then, the Radfords say, as Jesse hung 
out more and more with "the wrong crowd." The fight that landed him in jail 
was apparently over remarks someone made about his girlfriend.

When he was booked into jail, Jesse asked to see a jail nurse and told her 
he had eaten some bad mushrooms. He refused to let her take any of his 
vital signs, authorities said, and the jail staff decided to check on him 
every 15 minutes.

About two hours after the checks began, he was found dead.

The Coquille High gym was packed for Jesse's memorial service. The minister 
conducting the service urged the young people there to remember what 
happened to Jesse and to make the right choices about drugs.

Members of this year's senior class, with whom Jesse would have graduated, 
will wear a pin bearing his picture on graduation day.

The Radfords say that if anything good comes from his death, it will be to 
show the community's young people what drug abuse can lead to.

They wholly support a growing community movement in Coos County to combat 
meth abuse and say it's about time. Tears welling in her eyes, Jean Radford 
asks, "How many more young people will we have to lose?"

Related:

Meth menace: A nonprofit agency is trying to fight the devastating drug
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