Pubdate: Mon,  5 Jan 2004
Source: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)a
Copyright: 2004, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

STATE METH USE AHEAD OF COCAINE

Cheaper Drug Sent Slightly More Addicts Into Treatment In '03

Methamphetamine, with its cheaper, longer-lasting high, surpassed cocaine 
as the drug that most often landed abusers in Colorado treatment centers in 
2003.

Last year, 22.8 percent of admissions were for methamphetamine addiction, 
compared with 22.4 percent for cocaine.

That's a dramatic turnaround from 12 years ago, when cocaine was 
responsible for 40 percent of admissions, and methamphetamine, 3 percent. 
"That's never happened before," said Bruce Mendelson, director of data 
evaluation for the Colorado Department of Human Services Alcohol and Drug 
Abuse Division.

The rise in meth use is reflected in other statistics, as well:

. Meth-related deaths in Colorado more than doubled the past five years, 
from 16 in 1995-1998 to 38 from 1999-2002.

. Calls to the Rocky Mountain Poison Center about meth rose from a couple 
of dozen in the mid-1990s to about 300 per year the past three years.

. Police in Colorado busted about 25 clandestine meth labs annually in the 
mid-90s. Now, they're destroying about 500 a year.

. Some 85 percent of admissions at Cenikor, one of Denver's largest 
drug-treatment programs, are for methamphetamine. Ten years ago, they were 
only a small fraction.

Another measure of methamphetamine's prevalence is its frequent association 
with crime and violence: The Longmont man accused of stabbing his 
girlfriend's 3- and 7-year-old boys Christmas week told investigators he 
was high on crystal methamphetamine at the time of the attack.

Methamphetamine allegedly also was found in the car of the Raymond Juhl, 
accused of killing a 14-year-old passenger in another car during a 
high-speed chase in Thornton on Dec. 4.

The 'blue-collar' drug

Sometimes called "poor man's cocaine," methamphetamine is often made in 
kitchens with cold tablets and, astonishingly, battery acid.

Because its ingredients can be found in drugstores, and "labs" can be set 
up almost anywhere - including the backs of trucks and in rental storage 
units - meth is cheaper for users than cocaine.

"Methamphetamine can be considered somewhat of a blue-collar drug," 
Mendelson said.

It is becoming increasingly prevalent among Hispanics in metro Denver and 
in the San Luis Valley and southeast Colorado. Legal and illegal immigrants 
may be bringing the drugs - or their fondness for them - from Mexico, he said.

A meth high can last 12 hours, initially giving the user a feeling of 
indestructibility and inexhaustible energy.

"People are taking (methamphetamine) to work longer hours" as it gets 
tougher to make ends meet on 40 hours of work, Mendelson said.

"They stay awake longer hours, but have to pay the piper afterward. They'll 
be dealing with depression and appetite problems, kidney problems."

Over time, many will also be dealing with psychosis, hallucinations and 
heart damage. In some cases, they'll be dealing with death.

The lucky ones will land in a place like Cenikor before it's too late.

Long road to recovery

Sarah didn't have to search for methamphetamine, didn't have to buy it, 
steal it or beg for it.

"It was just in my face all the time, everywhere I looked," Sarah, 25, who 
doesn't want her last name used, said last week. "Anybody and everybody I 
hung out with and knew was doing it."

Methamphetamine so took over her life that she stayed up days at a time and 
kept using it during her pregnancy.

She had smoked marijuana in high school, but says her actual drug addiction 
started when she was in an abusive relationship, and turned to Ecstasy to 
dull the emotional pain.

"I went with friends to a club. They said, 'take this,' I did, and it felt 
great," Sarah said. "I was eating 20 or 25 pills a week, which is huge. 
I've always taken things to a hilt. I'm not a social user."

Then she fell into a relationship with someone with easy access to 
methamphetamine.

"For me, meth was a door of perception that wasn't there before," Sarah 
said. The first time she took it, she stayed up for four days, putting 
together a reference guide based on her 10 months in massage-therapy school.

"I didn't eat for four days and got a lot done. I lost 20 pounds right 
away. I went down to 120 in about three weeks. I loved that."

But she kept using, and by the time she reached Cenikor drug treatment 
center six months ago, she was down to 100 pounds on a 5-foot-7 frame.

"After you get into it, you can't get out of bed without it," Sarah said. 
"You're in pain without it, your muscles hurt, your bones hurt, your 
depression is terrible, you don't feel you can do anything without it."

So, despite knowing meth would put her unborn child at risk, she kept using 
it, albeit not quite as often.

Her child, mercifully, was born without apparent problems, and still Sarah 
used meth.

Authorities finally took her baby.

It was the thought of losing her child forever that convinced Sarah to 
enroll at Cenikor, which goes well beyond the 28-day cure, keeping patients 
an average of 2 ½ years.

Sarah hasn't used drugs for six months; if things continue to go well, 
she'll regain legal custody in a few months.

Then, it will be several more months in a Cenikor cottage with her 
daughter, then a government-subsidized apartment, she said.

"Now, I'm around my child and I can't get enough of her," Sarah said.

Thirty years ago, when Laurie Clark checked into Cenikor, she and most of 
her fellow patients were there because of heroin.

"When you go through withdrawal from heroin, you are incredibly sick, sick 
down to your bones," said Clark, now senior manager at Cenikor. 
"Withdrawing from methamphetamine is probably a little bit easier. The 
problem there is you can't sleep, you get paranoid."

Humans can physically withdraw from almost any drug in 72 hours, Clark 
said. Psychological withdrawal is the hard part.

She stayed at Cenikor for four years. "I didn't even think straight for a 
year," she said. "I didn't believe I could stay off it until I was off of 
it for a year."

Fighting any drug addiction is a lifetime commitment, she said. For her, 
the cravings grew less every year. She'll celebrate 30 years drug-free in 
March.

"Drugs are just so far removed from my reality," Clark said. "You get a 
taste of living right . . . I have such a wonderful life, I would never put 
it in jeopardy at this point."
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