BELLEVILLE - Educators, counselors, court personnel and police met today at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snow for the Metro-East Coalition Against Methamphetamine Conference.

The coalition's goal is to stamp out methamphetamine to create safe families and communities.

"People just get engulfed with it," said Illinois State Police Sgt. Joe Beliveau, head of the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois. "All they can do is want more and more."

Drug users will do anything to get the drug, causing a spike in property crime in communities, Beliveau said.

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