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.
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