Pubdate: Sat, 23 Sep 2006
Source: Mohave Valley Daily News (AZ)
Copyright: 2006 Mohave Valley News
Contact:  http://www.mohavedailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3625
Author: Jim Seckler

FORMER METH USERS SPREAD WORD OF RECOVERY

KINGMAN - Two Missouri authors and former drug dealers are spreading 
the word of the horrors of methamphetamine.

Steve Box and Bill McLemore were in Kingman last week on a tour 
visiting 17 jails and prisons - including the Mohave County Jail, the 
juvenile facility and the newly built state prison off Interstate 40 
southwest of Kingman.

Box and McLemore, former drug dealers and meth users, spoke with 
prisoners on the dangers of meth.

The authors also spoke to several dozen people, many former drug 
users, at a rally in Centennial Park in Kingman.

With local law enforcement saying more than 70 percent of all crime 
in the county is meth-related, Box and McLemore relate their 
experiences with the drug from the other side of the law.

Once arrested and charged with attempted murder and housed in the 
Clark County jail, Box now visits jails and prisoners spreading the 
word of faith and horrors of meth.

Box, 40, said he lost everything he owned, his house, his job, and 
his possessions in his seven years hooked meth.

Starting with marijuana and cocaine at 14, Box graduated to meth when 
he was 25.

Clean now for seven years, Box wrote three books on his experiences 
on and his nearly two-year struggle to get off meth.

"How do you get off meth?" he asked. "You learn to hate it."

Box said users fall into a sick world of child molestation, child 
abuse and neglect. He also spoke of babies being nailed to walls in meth homes.

McLemore, 48, started smoking marijuana at 13 years old and has been 
using meth for 30 years until he quit four years ago.

A drug dealer in prison for more than five years, he even managed to 
escape twice from a Kansas prison.

"Meth is the weapon of mass destruction in this country," McLemore said.

McLemore calls meth a medical nightmare with the devastating 
destruction on one's body and teeth.

McLemore also said doctors, attorneys, even judges find themselves 
hooked on the drug ensnaring addicts from 9 to 70 years old.

"This problem is not going away," he said. "The change has to happen 
within them," he said, pointing to his heart.

McLemore said an alarming number of grandparents are raising millions 
of children, whose parents are hooked on meth.

"It's the number one problem in law enforcement," McLemore said.

McLemore met Box at a speaking engagement four years ago and started 
a ministry together. The pair moved to a cabin the mountains of 
Missouri to write their books together.

Now they travel together wherever they are needed, talking to inmates 
and reformed drug users relating their experiences in and out of 
prison and hooked on meth.

Many times they hand out their faith-based books to inmates.
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