METH TRAVELS SOCIAL LADDER IN OKLAHOMA

They call it "crank," "go fast," "speed" -- fitting words for a drug that
has ripped across Oklahoma like a spring twister, tearing up families,
destroying lives. Former Gov. Frank Keating once called methamphetamine "a
white trash drug." But in the past decade, meth has traveled the social
ladder, mixed among the races, spanned ages and spread right in our midst.

"It's everywhere," said Rob Wallace, district attorney for Le Flore and
Latimer counties, "among everyone."

Users inject it, snort it, smoke it or ingest it. And they make it -- in
motels, on the beds of pickups, at home, down the road, next door.

Between 1992 and 2002, the number of clandestine meth labs in Oklahoma went
from zero to 1,254. The state ranked fourth nationwide last year for labs
seized, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics reports.

The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services found that the
state's overall use of methamphetamine in 1999 was 42 percent higher than
the national average.

Recent meth arrests have included a teacher, a police chief's son and a
former district attorney. The Cherokee Nation is so concerned, it has vowed
to lower meth use in its jurisdiction by 50 percent in five years through
education, law enforcement and social services.

The drug is sometimes brought into Oklahoma by Mexican gangs, the narcotics
agency says. But gangs aren't what keep police and sheriff's deputies
working through the night.

The small-time meth makers are.

They may be young or old, grandfathers or mothers with tiny babies. They
cook meth for themselves or a few friends using items as common as cold
medicine, rock salt, battery acid, road flares and drain cleaner.

"It's more powerful than any drug on the street, and it gives them more
pleasure," said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the narcotics bureau. "And
this is a drug they can make on their kitchen counter in four hours."

Nightly, thieves are stealing anhydrous ammonia from farmers to make meth.
Children who live where meth is made routinely test positive for the drug.

(Sidebar)

Lab seizures The Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs
Control reports the following number of clandestine methamphetamine lab
seizures in Oklahoma over the past decade:

1992 -- 0

1993 -- 0

1994 -- 10

1995 -- 34

1996 -- 125

1997 -- 241

1998 -- 275

1999 -- 781

2000 -- 946

2001 -- 1,193

2002 -- 1,254