Pubdate: Sun, 18 Mar 2007
Source: Daily Herald, The (Provo, UT)
Copyright: 2007 The Daily Herald
Contact:  http://www.heraldextra.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1480
Author: Natalie Andrews
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DEALING WITH DRUGS IN UTAH COUNTY

She's the woman you see at the mall, with her 13-year-old tagging behind her.

Getting into her sedan at the end of the trip, new pink sweater in 
the Macy's bag, her cell phone rings.

But sometimes when Mechelle Leifson's phone rings, the mother of four 
recovering drug addicts' heart jumps.

There have been too many late night phone calls in the past six years 
for her stomach to not still drop, for her to not worry about her boys.

Rewind to 2000.

Riley Leifson is her oldest. He was just graduating from high school 
- -- an exciting time for any mother. But something wasn't right.

There were secrets. He wasn't smiling the same and he was talking on 
the phone behind closed doors. She started listening in.

"I carried a number around in my purse of the drug cop for Spanish 
Fork -- that was back in 2000 -- and probably talked to him on the 
phone every day."

She would hear her son leave, then she would call the police. She 
knew he was doing drugs, but she could never catch him in the act. He 
was arrested for the first time, for underage drinking, in May 2000. 
Frustration mounted. She wanted to get him help, and rehabilitation 
didn't work because her son didn't want help. She kept the issue 
bottled up, confined to the family.

"You don't want anybody to think that your family isn't perfect," 
Mechelle Leifson said. "I just didn't know what to do. You don't know 
where to turn."

The Leifsons are just one family who struggle with drug addiction in 
Utah County, a place where heroin and drug-related-deaths rates are 
rising, requiring the attention of peace officers, health officials, 
counselors and those in the judicial system. Read: that's tax money 
attempting to heal the 85 percent of substance abusers in the Utah 
County Jail, and their families.

Enter PANIC

For two years, Mechelle Leifson was alone in her fight to stop the 
drugs. Then an acquaintance, Cindy King, sent an e-mail in October 
2002 saying she wanted to start a support group for parents of 
addicts. From that, PANIC was born, Parents -- now People -- Against 
Narcotics In the Community.

The group is for people feeling fear when drugs creep into their 
family. In Utah County, those who work with drugs every day say that 
it is a common problem.

"The amounts of drugs that we seize continually go up, the amount of 
cases that we do continually go up," said Utah County Major Crimes 
Task Force Lt. Mike Forshee. "I'm bound only by the amount of 
officers I have. If I doubled the amount of officers I had, I'd 
double the amount of siezures I could do."

It's not just about the seizures. It's what drugs do to the families, 
Richard Nance, substance abuse coordinator for the Utah County Health 
Department, pointed out.

Just last month, on Feb. 26, the task force made one of its biggest 
busts ever. Twelve pounds of methamphetamine, worth $750,000 was 
recovered from a vehicle and a home in West Jordan.

Nance said that while Utah's rate of treatment compared to population 
isn't large, that offers little comfort to a family dealing with an addict.

"We do have a drug problem here, there's not one county in the 
country that doesn't," he said. "Utah County usually has half the 
rate of the state and Utah usually has half the rate of the country as whole."

Not Alone

Mechelle's panic was greeted with love that October night in 2002.

She walked into welcoming doors, nervous at first, but she realized 
that she knew nervous parents. All of these "friends" who her son 
talked about, the nicknames he used, had mothers who Mechelle knew. 
She wasn't by herself anymore.

The parents learned one lesson that night that has become the PANIC 
mantra: Once an addict, always an addict.

"We all thought that there was going to be a quick fix," Mechelle 
Leifson said. "I thought that when I walked into that meeting that 
night, someone was going to tell me to do this, this and this and it 
would be fixed. There is no cure for addiction."

What started as a small meeting -- a dozen parents -- now draws 
hundreds from around the county to the Spanish Fork Middle School 
cafetorium. Leifson, who leads the monthly meetings, said she does it 
for son No. 5, Judd. He will graduate from high school in May and she 
wants him to stay clean.

Judd stays away from drugs because of his brother's story, he doesn't 
want to do drugs because he knows what it can do. Addiction is the 
war that families like the Leifsons fight, a war seemingly without end.

Once An Addict ...

Riley Leifson's first drug arrest was for heroin on April 17, 2003. 
In the jail, he joined those struggling just like him.

No matter the crime they committed, 85 percent of inmates at the Utah 
County Jail are reported to have a drug addiction, according to the 
Utah County Health Department.

It means that drugs drive crime.

"You've got to get money for the drug addiction," Nance said.

With a street value of $60-$70 a pill, if one was addicted to 
OxyContin at four pills a day, the addiction would cost about $1,820 
per week. That's more than $7,280 a month, Nance said.

In Utah County, 89.4 percent of those in treatment programs are below 
federal poverty guidelines. That means an income of roughly $10,000 
per year, according to the 2007 Department of Health and Human Services.

"You either steal the drugs or steal the money to buy the drugs," Nance said.

A County Addiction

"Our biggest problem is methamphetamine. It seems to be the drug of 
choice," said Forshee of Utah County Major Crimes Task Force. "It's 
responsible for a lot of the property crimes, a lot of the identity thefts."

One of the more recently discovered labs was allegedly run by Provo 
couple Evelyn and Maximino Arriaga, who were arrested on Jan. 12. 
Scales and supplies were found in their home and in the shed next 
door. They are charged with operation of a clandestine laboratory and 
child endangerment because there was a 1-year-old child living in the 
home. The preliminary hearing is set for March 19. Division of Child 
and Family Services took custody of the child.

Methamphetamine, once known for it's clandestine labs hidden in 
neighborhoods, has become trafficked like marijuana and cocaine. Most 
of the drugs -- cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana -- in 
Utah are from Mexico, said Forshee, and that has changed the way the 
task force handles stings.

Why the change in the where drugs come from? A few reasons: Utah has 
a limited growing season, so drugs like marijuana struggle. In 
reference to methamphetamine, the task force credits four strict 
federal laws passed in the 1990s on access to ephedrine and 
pseudoephedrine, key ingredients for meth. Economics play a role, 
too, because it's cheaper to import.

Research by James Cunningham, Ph.D. of the University of Arizona 
Applied Behavior Health Policy, showed that each time laws were 
passed, arrests and hospital admissions went down.

Forshee said it's made it too difficult to mass produce and sell the 
drug locally, making it easier to go foreign. Instead of finding 
hundreds of labs a year, like the task force did in 2000, they find 
only six to eight a year.

For the most part, it's agencies like the Utah Highway Patrol that 
now get surprise busts when they break a link in the drug pipeline, 
Forshee said.

According to the police, there are three problem drugs in Utah County.

"Marijuana is our biggest usage, but methamphetamine is probably the 
worst drug that we have and heroin is killing people more than 
anything," Forshee said.

Breaking it down: marijuana is easier to get, so it doesn't cause as 
much crime; methamphetamine causes the crime; and heroin is becoming 
known for its overdoses.

A Rise In Heroin

The heroin rise is tied to costly prescription drugs sold on the street.

A study released last month by the U.S. Department of Health and 
Human Services listed Utah as leading the nation in nonmedical use of 
prescription drugs in 2004 and 2005, with 6.5 percent of the 
population using drugs without a doctor's order.

And Nance said that Utah County's prescription drug abuse is worse.

"You have to compare Utah County to other places," he said. "We have 
about half of the total drug problem that Salt Lake County has. But 
we have three times of the amount of opiate abuse addiction that Salt 
Lake County has."

Both heroin and prescription drugs like OxyContin, Lortab and 
Percoset are opiates, and thus result in similar chemical reaction in 
the brain. And while OxyContin is expensive, $60-$80 a pill, or $1 
per mg, on the street, Forshee says a balloon of heroin sells for $10 for 3 mg.

It's a cheaper hit for the same high. But the problem is, heroin is a 
powerful drug and police are seeing people overdose.

"Today I'm seeing kids that have never drank in their life, never 
smoked cigarettes, going from doing prescription drugs to doing 
heroin," Forshee said.

Heroin used to be the hard stuff, a drug that users worked up to.

"They are just not an experienced drug user to handle it," he said, 
noting that they will take too much too soon and overdose.

Former presiding 4th District Judge Anthony Schofield said that he's 
seen the rise in heroin-related cases.

"There's heroin cases in our court every day," he said, noting that 
it used to be methamphetamine.

Nance said drug court in 2000 was referred to as meth court, but not 
any more. While 4th District Judge James Taylor, who presides over 
Utah County's first-time offending drug court, said most addicts are 
poly-users, meaning that they use several different kinds of drugs, 
he's seen an "upsurge in heroin" cases.

Because of the rise in opiate use, the type of drug treatment the 
county has is changing. The county offers two opiate treatment 
centers, Discovery House and Project Reality.

Systematic Approach

Utah County's drug court plays it a little different than most.

Because 85 percent of crimes committed are connected to drugs in some 
way, anyone facing a felony for the first time has a chance, albeit 
slim, to get into Utah County's first-time offender drug court.

Taylor has been presiding over the drug court for five years, and 
says that of those who start the drug court program, 60 percent 
graduate. Of those who graduate, only 10 percent ever come back to court.

Through the yearlong court process, Taylor forms a personal 
relationship with each of the 60 drug court clients.

"It's been very rewarding," Taylor said. "It's heartbreaking to see 
them die or leave."

In the past four years, Taylor said there have been 240 drug-related 
deaths in Utah County and 14 of those have been drug court attendees. 
A drug court client enters the program by being charged with a felony 
of possession of a controlled substance or a drug-related crime. 
Nance said that for many it's a wake-up call because it's the first.

There is only room for 60 people in the drug court program for first 
offenders and about 10 for second offenders. Those in the program 
enter a plea in abeyance with the court so that when they finish the 
program successfully, the charge is erased from their record.

It starts with Phase 1, where clients meet with the judge every week, 
along with the coordinator. After complying, they move to Phase 2, 
where meetings are every two weeks and so forth until Phase 4. Drug 
tests are random, but frequent, and dirty tests have consequences.

"If we get a test that they've been using, I immediately sanction," 
Taylor said. He might send the person to jail or to Foothill 
Residential Treatment Center -- Utah County's 10-bed social 
detoxification facility. Or, they might do community service. It's 
his choice and he defines the need.

"I put people in jail knowing that if I don't, they will be dead," 
Taylor said. "More often, when I lock them up, it's not to punish 
them, it's just for the treatment to clean them up."

He isn't without treatment center options, should that be his choice. 
Nance says that Utah County has more drug treatment centers than he 
can count. And they serve addicts of all walks. Last year the county 
treated 2,057 addicts. Nance said that an estimated 9,800 people in 
the county need treatment.

Foothill is a public program for adults only, where addicts can walk 
in either court ordered or off the street and detox while supervised.

Ryan Sights, substance abuse counselor aide, said there's no 
medication involved and that the process can be excruciating.

Over the course of seven to 10 days, clients go through the "worst 
flu one could ever imagine," said Gordon Bruin, program services 
manager in the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse. Diarrhea, 
shakes, vomiting, sweats and nausea are all part of the acute 
withdrawal of opiate addiction.

Always An Addict

Foothill also has a residential program for 22 people, separate from 
the detoxification facility, where clients work to end addiction. 
Sights said that treatment only works when an addict wants it to.

Sights says that often, family members bring them in by force, but 
the minute the family leaves, the addict walks out.

That's why Riley Leifson said it didn't work for him.

"The only reason kids go to rehab is to satisfy their parents," he 
said. "Nobody else can do it for you, you've got to want it."

Instead, the desire for treatment comes from within.

Riley Leifson said that in his four-year struggle with drugs, the 
real wake-up call was a stint in jail and two years of probation, 
which requires constant drug testing. Fail probation and it's back in 
jail and back through the court system.

Knowing the consequences, Riley Leifson has stayed clean.

New Money

Resources in the way of $8 million came for 2008 from the Legislature 
via the Drug Offenders Reform Act, or DORA. Utah County Substance 
Abuse prevention will get $533,000 for assessment of convicted 
felons, said Richard Nance, director of Utah County Substance Abuse.

Sen. Chris Buttars sponsored the bill. He said that he'd been working 
on the act for six years, believing fervently in the statistic that 
75 percent to 85 percent of inmates have a fundamental controlled 
substance abuse problem.

Nance said that in Utah County's jail, the statistic is 85 percent, 
with opiate use being the worst problem.

Under the act, Utahns convicted of a felony drug crime after July 1 
this year will be required to participate in a drug treatment 
screening and assessment process prior to sentencing. Courts would 
determine the extent to which an offender should enter a treatment program.

Buttars said that 2,000 inmates could benefit from DORA, spending 
$4,200 to treat each person. In the long run, Buttars said it will 
save space in the prison and money.

On average, it costs $50 a day to incarcerate an inmate in the state 
prison, according to the state drug court. That's $100,000 a day if 
those inmates don't reoffend, and half of them likely won't according 
to drug treatment statistics.

"The savings to society is enormous, the savings to families are 
unbelievable," Buttars said.

Nance said that when inmates enter the county jail, they are assessed 
already to determine their addiction. It helps them know how to best 
help them -- and to know what drugs are being used in Utah County.

Utah County representatives in the division of substance abuse and 
representitives from the courts will be meeting in the next few weeks 
to discuss what to do with the funds.

One Family's Story

They were curious. It simply couldn't be that bad. So a sip here, a 
sniff there.

For Riley, Jordan and Travis Leifson, drugs started their respective 
senior years of high school.

At first it was alcohol; police picked Riley up for underage drinking 
in May 2000.

But that wasn't drugs, so it wasn't bad, right? It sounds cliche, but 
the adage held true: Everyone was doing it, Jordan said.

"Everybody feeds on everybody else," Riley said.

And when friends start, it's not an addiction, it's an activity.

"It's accessible. It's kind of like one big group," Jordan said.

And eventually, as it almost always does, the addiction takes over.

"There was a point when I thought I wasn't going to quit. I thought I 
was going to die doing heroin," Riley said.

Their mother watched her boys' personalities change. In three years 
she had three addicts.

At first it's easy to hide an addiction because the drugs are paid 
for with a job. But eventually the drugs become more important than a job.

Mother Mechelle would come home and items would be gone: her diamond 
ring, a television, little brother Judd's Nintendo, little sister 
Linzi's bike. All sold to pay for drugs.

When police told Mechelle that Division of Child and Family Services 
could take her youngest two children from her if drugs were in the 
home, Mechelle had to make a rule: no drugs, and that meant no boys.

So in the middle of winter 2003 her boys left. She didn't want to 
learn tough love, but she did, even when sores were covering Jordan's body.

"I had Travis's funeral planned," she said.

She says that parents often enable addicts.

"We bail them out, we pay the thousands of dollars for rehab. For my 
kids, none of it helped. Even after I kicked them out and they lived 
on the streets in the dead of the winter. All they had to do was quit 
using drugs and I would have let them back in."

And while Mechelle had kicked them out, she hadn't given up. She kept 
in contact with the police -- she's had the number in her purse for six years.

It was the law that brought most of the boys back to clean living. 
One by one her sons, clearly related with shaggy blonde hair and blue 
eyes, turned themselves in. At one point all three were in the Utah 
County Jail at the same time.

While Travis was running -- a warrant was issued for his arrest -- he 
spoke with Spanish Fork drug officer Phil Nelson almost everyday for 
30 days. Nelson told him to turn himself in when he was ready.

"He just kept saying 'When you're ready to go to jail, bud, come 
back. There's just no way out this time,' " Mechelle Leifson said. 
"To this day, Travis says, he's the one that saved his life."

Travis got out of jail on Halloween, so with all of the brothers 
sporadically serving time, this Thanksgiving was the family's first 
spent together in four years.

But a wary Mechelle says she's learned that it's "once an addict, 
always an addict." She knows her sons will struggle for the rest of 
their lives. Drugs change the chemical makeup of the brain.

"It's sad," she said. "It's not just like they go in one time and 
they're cured. It's in and out."

It's the rollercoaster that makes every phone call cause the heart 
jump. Her last scary phone call was in December. This time it was Jake.

She thought he was doing well, but Jake says that having a full-time 
job, a lot of money and nothing to spend it on started taking him to 
Spanish Fork from Vernal three times a week for OxyContin with 
friends who were involved in the drug.

When OxyContin wasn't available, he had found methadone for the high. 
It put him in the hospital in Vernal and he woke up a week later in 
Provo at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.

"I didn't know if I'd gotten hit by a car, I didn't know what had 
happened," Jake said of waking up in the hospital surrounded by his family.

He's now drug tested three times a week, and staying clean and taking 
classes about drugs as part of his probation.

His brothers are his inspiration, especially Riley, who has completed 
his drug probation and stayed clean 2 years and 9 months. He is 
getting his commercial driver's license now, supporting Boston, his 
chubby-cheeked 9-month-old baby.

Jordan is clean too, for more than two years and working for Triple T 
Heating & Cooling. He is finished with probation as well.

All of them say associating with friends involved with drugs has to be avoided.

"You can't, it's too hard," said Jordan. "I have a lot of regrets, 
putting my family through what I did. Stealing, lying, cheating."

Mechelle knows that there will likely be difficulties in the future, 
but she enjoys the good moments. Moments like Boston's giggles and 
the Thanksgiving with no police.

Her sons all have jobs, and each morning is the best part. The 
vehicles are running -- four pick-up trucks -- to warm up and 
Mechelle checks each bedroom to make sure each boy is working, and she smiles.

In December at the monthly PANIC meeting, her boys gave her flowers 
and Marie Osmond tickets for her birthday, Riley saying that his mom 
"loves us, even when she shouldn't."

Warning signs

The American Council for Drug Education states that there are no hard 
and fast rules to identifying drug use, though the key is change. 
Here are some changes to watch for:

Physical warning signs

1. Slowed or staggering walk; poor physical coordination.

2. Red, watery eyes; pupils larger or smaller than usual; blank stare.

3. Cold, sweaty palms; shaking hands.

4. Puffy face, blushing or paleness.

5. Smell of substance on breath, body or clothes.

6. Extreme hyperactivity; excessive talkativeness.

7. Runny nose; hacking cough.

8. Nausea, vomiting or excessive sweating.

9. Tremors or shakes of hands, feet or head.

10. Needle marks on lower arm, leg or bottom of feet

Behavioral warning signs

1. Eating habits: Loss of appetite or increase in appetite; change in weight

2. Sleep patterns: Is your child awake or asleep at unusual times?

3. A new crowd: new friends or hang-outs; avoids old friends; 
unwilling to talk about or introduce new friends.

4. Performance: drop in grades at school or performance at work; 
skips school or work, or regularly arrives late.

5. Mood Swings: oversensitivity, temper tantrums, moodiness, 
irritability, or nervousness.

6. Motivation: general lack of motivation, energy, self-esteem, an "I 
don't care" attitude. Difficulty paying attention.

7. Secretiveness: Teens are naturally concerned about privacy. But a 
child who is excessively secretive may really have something to hide.

8. Dishonesty: Is your child vague about their evening or weekend 
plans? Coming up with excuses for being late home? Chronic dishonesty 
can be a sign of substance abuse.

9. Cash flow: Unexplained need for money; money, alcohol, cigarettes 
or valuables go missing around the home.

10. Drug paraphernalia: Common items include pipes, bongs, cigars, 
rolling papers, butane lighters, roach clips, syringes, tourniquets, 
burned tinfoil or spoons; as well as products to cover drug odors 
such as dryer sheets, air freshener, incense, or towels under the door.

PANIC meetings draw hundreds

Families dealing with drug-addicted members often come to PANIC 
meetings for support. Here are some statements from those at the meetings.

"Sammy's an addict and will be until she dies. The only way she could 
not be an addict is if she had never started. Where is the point of 
no return? If you never cross the fence, you're not going to fall 
over the most dangerous mountain." -- Sammy's father, Mark Walker, Salem.

"I think it's countywide. We're just a small town, and it's finally 
hitting us. But the PANIC meetings, I can relate to." -- Tina Kinsey, 
American Fork

"It's friends. It's neighbors." -- Sebrina Campbell, Spanish Fork

"If you don't have hope, you don't have anything." -- Jessica Erway, Santaquin.

"We're more fortunate than most, because a lot of them have put them 
in the ground." -- Kelly Hansen, Payson

"You feellike you're in jail because you have to lock your purse, 
your checks. Everytime you want anything you have to go to the safe." 
- -- Holly Hansen, Payson

"It (PANIC) educates us. Some of us are so dumb. When you first start 
out with an addict, you feel like the only one. Helping them isn't 
always giving them what they want. When they are using, you lose your 
own son." -- Patrice Whitelock, Santaquin

"My son went a whole year and never touched it and six months later 
he was back on heroin." -- Pam Johnson, of the rollercoaster.
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