Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 Source: Flagpole (GA) Copyright: 2009 Flagpole Inc. Contact: http://www.flagpole.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2407 Author: John Huie Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) NEW "GEORGIA METH PROJECT" STEPS UP ANTI-DRUG PUSH New "Georgia Meth Project" Steps Up Anti-Drug Push While many people can use alcohol or other drugs - legal or illegal - without risking job, jail or social isolation, that's not so for everyone, says Sandra Conton, drug counseling coordinator for Advantage Behavioral Health Systems, which contracts with the state's Department of Human Resources and other agencies to provide local drug counseling. For others, drug use becomes a way of avoiding personal problems that eventually catch up with the user, she says. "Social dependency is so rampant" in high school that most people who seek help for drug dependency started using drugs then, she tells Flagpole. Others started using drugs because other people in their home used them, she says. Then "they find out they're stuck" - often because their drug use is covering other problems, like unresolved childhood issues. "They feel like their problem has been solved," Conton says, but put off dealing with real-life issues until they become critical. People then come to counseling with issues like homelessness, inability to keep a job, disconnection with family or health issues. "The drugs themselves are not the problem," Conton says. "The addictive potential is the issue." Group counseling has proven most effective for drug users, and, she says, "we don't turn anybody away" if they can't pay. And while "people are not shooting up" as much as they once did, she says, smoking crack cocaine and taking methamphetamine have serious health effects. Amphetamines have been around a long time - the '60s hippies shunned the drug, declaring "speed kills" - but the powerful meth version has moved from the club scene to mainstream America, perhaps especially rural America. Laws curbing availability of over-the-counter cold medications (like Sudafed) from which meth can be manufactured have failed to reduce its availability, says Jim Langford, director of the state-sponsored Georgia Meth Project. He thinks rural meth labs are the modern equivalent of moonshining: "It comes out of some of that same culture." Cheap and powerful, the drug promises long-lasting highs, increased energy, weight loss and sexual arousal, says the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Besides weight loss, it can deliver impotence, decayed teeth, skin lesions, heart attack or stroke, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations and even violent aggressiveness, says the CDC. Depressive "crashes" may induce long-term users to take more of the drug, in a downward spiral of addiction. The drug can also encourage careless sexual behavior, risking HIV infection. "This is dangerous stuff," Langford tells Flagpole. "Those smaller communities and rural communities in Georgia, particularly North Georgia, are just being devastated by this drug." Aided by contributions from Georgia businesses, the Meth Project plans to air striking TV spots to discourage people from trying meth - "not even once." In 2005, over 1,400 Georgians went to prison for meth offenses, with five-year sentences typical. "We spend millions each year on meth-related incarcerations alone," according to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker in the Georgia Meth Project's materials. "If we do nothing, our criminal justice system will reach a breaking point." Many Georgia children are in foster care because their own parents have been "incarcerated or incapacitated" by meth use, he says. Drug users frequently have other problems, too: legal ones that range from traffic offenses to assault. ACC Police Chief Jack Lumpkin says drug use is "a catalyst" for people who commit repeat property crimes. (On average, ACC jail inmates have been in jail 11 times before; drug counseling is available to inmates). Lumpkin says that marijuana is "the drug of choice by far" in Athens, along with alcohol, and that pot use "spans all cultures." Clarke County Superior Court Judge Steve Jones told Athens' Federation of Neighborhoods last year that one-third of Georgia's prisoners are drug offenders; since 2004, Jones has overseen the "felony drug court" which allows drug users to work full-time and attend counseling, rather than go to jail. "Maturity showed me that putting somebody in jail with a substance abuse problem, all you're going to get out is a person with a substance abuse problem," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom