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.