Pubdate: Mon, 25 Apr 2005
Source: Asheville Citizen-Times ( NC )
Copyright: 2005 Asheville Citizen-Times
Contact:  http://www.citizen-times.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863
Author: Lindsay Nash

METH: `A DRUG THAT RUINS LIVES'

ASHEVILLE -- Erin Eastburn wants to change this time.  She's tired of being 
in jail, tired of the drug that got her there and tired of seeing her 
2-year-old son on the other side of the visiting room glass.

"I want to be a recovering addict for the rest of my life, rather than an 
addict," said Eastburn, who at 22 fits a common profile of a 
methamphetamine user.

She is young, female, from a rural area, and once was addicted to 
cocaine.  Woman are becoming as likely to use the highly addictive illegal 
drug as are men, according to U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration 
statistics.  Also like Eastburn, a Macon County resident, one-fourth of 
meth addicts have children in the home.

Eastburn started using cocaine when she was 13, but switched to meth two 
years later.  The drug was cheaper, more available and offered a stronger 
and longer high than cocaine -- all reasons for meth's spread across the 
nation.

Arrests and busts of highly toxic meth-making labs have soared in recent 
years.  Law enforcement officers in North Carolina swooped in on 243 labs 
last year, up from nine in 1999, according to the DEA.

The drug is often manufactured in rural areas to hide its pungent smell, 
increasing its threat in Western North Carolina, a region that has dealt 
with the bulk of meth lab busts in the state.

Eastburn had no problem finding the drug.  She bought it from her neighbor.

Highly addictive

Twenty-six year old Kevin Taylor first tried meth when he was 17.  One time 
and he was addicted, he said.

Taylor never had a real job.  When he needed money for his next fix, he 
made meth himself.

"It's very rare to find makers that are not users," state Attorney General 
Roy Cooper said.  "Some of these superlabs in California and Georgia are 
more of the moneymaking operations.  But most cases here are small homemade 
labs."

In Western North Carolina, the meth manufacturers operate small 
scale.  They're making the drug for themselves, and then selling whatever 
is left to other users to foot their bill.

"I'm not a cold-hearted person, but I would have sold drugs to anybody," 
said Taylor, who is serving a 79-year prison sentence for multiple drug 
charges.  "I just didn't care.  All I needed was money for my next fix."

Also called crystal, speed, chalk, ice or poor man's cocaine, meth is cheap 
to make and easy to sell.  The drug creates a longer high than other drugs, 
and users can stay awake for days at a time.

Addiction leads to psychotic, or violent behavior and brain 
damage.  Withdrawal symptoms include depression, anxiety, fatigue, paranoia 
and aggression.

Taylor, who has a 6-year-old son that now lives in Florida, said he often 
stole to get money for the drugs, instead of finding money to feed his child.

"It makes me feel like the worst person on the Earth," he said.  "He's my 
world."

Users become extremely paranoid, said Watauga County Sheriff Mark Shook, 
who has responded to seven labs this year.

"We've sent undercover officers to labs where the makers were so paranoid 
they thought police were hiding in their bushes and watching from planes 
overhead.  We've seen people shoot into the woods because they thought the 
FBI was watching them."

With it's growth, meth addiction has spread to other demographics, 
including people in occupations that demand long hours, students who are 
looking for longer mental alertness and athletes who are looking for 
increased endurance, according to the Koch Crime Institute, a crime 
research organization.

"These folks have jobs, have a family or are starting families, work hard 
in real jobs, have children and have a car," he said.  "They're trying to 
own their own home or they rent to provide for their family."

Shook said he has made arrests of people as young as 15 and as old as 71.

"It's a drug that ruins lives, and more so than other drugs," Shook 
said.  "It's a drug that makes people feel like Superman."

Addicts will do anything to get their next fix, he said.  "It's just 
something they have to have."
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