Pubdate: Wed, 02 Nov 2005
Source: Charleston Gazette (WV)
Copyright: 2005 Charleston Gazette
Contact:  http://www.wvgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/77
Author: Chandra Broadwater, staff writer
Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

JUST ONCE

St. Albans Students Learn About Meth's Instant Addiction

One student asked another to help steady her arm in the restroom so
she could shoot up meth.

Throughout the year, St. Albans High teachers had watched her become
thinner and thinner. The girl donned a down jacket most of the time at
school - no matter what the weather.

After learning about what happened from the other student in the
restroom, Vice Principal Robin Francis immediately went on a locker
search. Inside the girl's book bag, Francis found the well of a metal
spoon, a lighter, a syringe full of the amber-colored drug and tubing
to cinch the arm.

"I had never seen meth, never taken a syringe away from anyone,"
Francis told a sophomore science class at the close of a presentation
on methamphetamine.

"We called the police, and [Principal Tom] Williams walked her down
the walk outside in handcuffs and into the police car," she said.

That was last year, and she was one of the few students at the school
ever found with meth. On Tuesday, Francis and the students were part
of the first county high school group to hear retired Kanawha County
Sheriff's Capt. David Ross' talk on the highly addictive drug.

Ross was invited to the school as part of a series of guest speakers
for the class.

Since the first meth lab was found in 1997 in Wood County, thousands
have popped up across the state. As of Tuesday, 103 have been found in
Kanawha this year.

Ross travels the county and speaks to anyone who asks. Audiences range
from school groups to doctors and nurses. His PowerPoint presentation
comes complete with gruesome mug shots of the infamous Florida meth
addict deteriorating over the course of several arrests, to startling
facts and figures that made students sit up a little straighter in
their seats and cringe.

Ross always points to a 1999 USA Today survey, which polled more than
15,000 students from across the country. About 1,300 from West
Virginia took part.

"The use among those students in West Virginia was 7 percent above
the national average, " Ross said. "I don't think I want to know
what it is today."

While he had no current facts or figures to give, Ross said that the
Sheriff's Department has arrested people as young as fifth-graders
and as old as 76 for possession of meth.

"And everything in between," he said.

On Tuesday, students learned that meth was first made in 1892 by a
doctor trying to figure out how to make a pain reliever. Adolf Hitler
had Nazi troops use it during World War II.

The drug is different from alcohol, cocaine and even heroin in that
itA's addictive from the first try. The habit is about 20,000 times
harder to break than quitting cigarettes.

And while it used to be one of the cheapest street drugs around, meth
can now cost up to $2,400 an ounce. Not only because it's so
difficult to make - many meth labs end up in flames - but also
because those who make it use it themselves.

"Meth turns good people to bad, and bad to worse," Ross said.
Flipping through his presentation, he lingered on several pictures of
a trashed home and yard, littered with tattered garbage bags and empty
pseudoephedrine boxes.

The lab in the house was discovered after the couple's 4-year-old son
dragged his 9-month-old brother to the neighbor's house. They hadnA't
eaten in days and smelled of ammonia and cat urine - the toxic scent
associated with meth.

"We usually call people who live like this 'dirt bags,'" Ross
said. "But this house was appraised by the county at $250,000. These
people were affluent, the husband a lawyer and the wife a nurse. They
both quit their jobs to do meth. They gave their kids and their lives
away and went to jail."

While Nina Page said she learned a lot about meth that she didnA't
know before, the sophomore said that the drug isn't anything new to
her. She had known the student arrested last year since the first grade.

"Before she was arrested, I hadn't seen her for a while and asked
her why she was so skinny," Page said. "She said that she just
didn't eat, and even told me that she lost 10 pounds in two days. We
were best friends, but not anymore."

Walking out of the school Tuesday, Ross said that there's always one
thing that gets his crowds every time - the instant addiction of meth.

"People have a hard time believing that," he said. "They can't
conceive that it's something your body only needs once. Just once."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin