COCAINE USE INCREASES AMONG YOUTH

Cocaine has become the drug of choice for a new generation of youth
in Lafayette County.

According to the Lafayette County Sheriff's Department, cocaine
seizures have increased from 177.10 grams in 2004 to 590.60 grams in
2005, an increase of more than 300 percent in less than a year.

"The younger generation is getting more involved, especially high
school students," said Sean Lynch, assistant commander of the
Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit. "The biggest increase has come
from adults 18 to 25."

The Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit is a grant-funded,
four-member team that combats drugs in Lafayette County. Its biggest
problem of late has been the re-emergence of cocaine.

Lynch said the rise has come from the use of powder cocaine, which
the younger generation thinks is not as hard a drug as crack cocaine.
That mindset and the fact that a gram of powder cocaine goes for $65
on the street in Lafayette County, compared to $100 in Chicago or
Detroit, has led to the increase in cocaine seizures.

According to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 34.2
million Americans ages 12 and older had tried cocaine at least once
in their lifetimes.

The Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit has its hands full
combating the problem of increased drug use and misconceptions of the
harmful effects of powder cocaine use. Lynch speaks at high schools
and community groups to better educate people on the consequences
cocaine will have on their life.

"I speak to them about peer pressure and the long-term harm it's
going to cause their body," Lynch said.

The Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit made 95 drug arrests in
2004. According to Lynch, the recidivism rate is about 60 percent.
The use of powder cocaine by people of all racial and socioeconomic
backgrounds is steadily on the rise.

The use and selling of methamphetamine has decreased significantly in
Lafayette County over the past year.

The Lafayette county Metro Narcotics Unit has taken down several
large methamphetamine labs in Lafayette County.

The sell and use of marijuana has increased during the past year.

The Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit works on joint operations
with neighboring counties to make arrest.

County sheriff's departments, the FBI's Drug Enforcement Agency and
state police share intelligence information to apprehend drug
suspects in the local area, including students from Ole Miss.

"We get our share from the university as well as the surrounding
area," Lynch said.

Once suspects are apprehended they go through circuit court.

If it's a felony they will sometimes be sent to an alcohol and drug
treatment facility.

"A lot of the younger people we arrest tend to go through alcohol and
drug treatment programs. This gives a lot of these young people a
chance to turn their lives around and keep themselves out of the
penitentiary," Lynch said.

"We receive people who are court ordered to receive treatment or they
would have to receive jail time," said Jerry Madden, mental health
therapist for Communicare's haven house treatment facility.

Communicare is a private non-profit organization that offers a number
of treatment options.

Communicare, which takes patients ages 18 and up, has seen an
increase in the number of younger patients coming into the facility.

It has also seen an increase in the number of cocaine addicts seeking
treatment.

"Cocaine hits the pleasure center of the brain and makes it fire and
people who use it feel such an intense sense of pleasure the first
time they use it. People who use it end up chasing that first high
but they can never get it again," Madden said. " We've had some
people come back multiple times and that seems to be the younger
people who we see coming back."