HARRISON LAUNCHES ANTI-METH CAMPAIGN

During a morning raid on a Harrison County methamphetamine lab last March,
police were stunned to discover a huge stockpile of dangerous chemicals.

Amid the squalor -- where two young girls lived with their mother --
authorities found gallon upon gallon of explosive, highly toxic substances
and even an open tub of acid that, if spilled, could have sparked a huge
explosion.

"It's unreal how big that (lab) was, and how dangerous it was," recalled
Harrison County Police Chief Gary Gilley, a veteran drug investigator.

In a separate incident linked to meth, Gilley rushed to Corydon Central
High after an 18-year-old student collapsed in gym class from a drug
overdose. The boy was revived and taken to a hospital.

The two incidents -- along with the deaths this year of two young adults
whom police believe were meth users -- have led Harrison County officials
to rank the drug as the community's top problem.

And now a large and diverse force of police, prosecutors, social-service
agencies and government leaders has begun working on a grassroots campaign
that will begin battling the drug next month .

The project, funded with $48,000 from local sources and $83,000 in grants
from the Indiana Association of United Ways, will attempt to raise
awareness and educate youth, families and other residents about meth and
its risks.

Part of the effort also will focus on ways to improve coordination among
police, courts, child-protection authorities and other key agencies.

"Everyone agrees meth is at an epidemic proportion," said Debbie Heazlitt,
a Corydon resident and part-time project coordinator who was hired in June.
"Something has to stop."

WHAM, or War in Harrison County Against Meth, is thought to be a first in
the region. It's modeled in part on a community program in Wright County,
Minn., which experienced a sudden influx of meth in the late 1990s.

Preliminary plans in Harrison call for a two-year awareness project,
starting with a billboard campaign, surveys of students and a blitz that
may include "scratch and sniff" items to help the public identify the odors
commonly rising from meth labs.

Eventually, the effort could extend beyond awareness and education to a
treatment program for addicts.

For now, the focus is education.

"Hopefully, this can have a big impact," said Lauren Wheatley, a deputy
Harrison County prosecutor working under a federal drug-prevention grant.

Meth is a highly addictive stimulant that can be manufactured using common
household items and medications found in drugstores. Most "cooks" use
pseudoephedrine-based cold-medicine tablets and anhydrous ammonia, a
fertilizer used by farmers.

Users who smoke, snort, inject or swallow the drug can suffer brain damage,
insomnia and psychotic episodes. They ride highs that can extend over
several days.

Earlier this year, Kentucky and Indiana legislators passed laws aimed at
curbing meth production. They restrict sales of cold medicines containing
pseudoephedrine.

It's unclear how those measures will work to reduce meth production when
the numbers of raids on clandestine labs and law-enforcement costs have
climbed dramatically in the last four years.

In 2004, for instance, Indiana had about 1,129 meth-lab raids, compared
with 450 in 2000. A statewide meth task force estimated this year that the
annual cost of meth abuse -- for jail space, treatment, social services and
lab cleanups -- will be $100 million.

In Harrison, Heazlitt and others are still pulling together county
statistics. But state police have told them that the county ranks among
Indiana's top five or so in meth-related problems.

In addition, they know that 17 children were removed from homes in the last
fiscal year because of meth, Heazlitt said.

In 2002, there were 22 search warrants related to drugs, most of which
involved meth. The numbers rose to 57 in 2003 and 86 in 2004. So far, this
year, 60 search warrants have been issued, and the number of drug-lab raids
is on pace to exceed last year's 38, Wheatley said.

Police and prosecutors began to see an increased prevalence about four
years ago. At the same time, confidential informants warned police that the
drug was no joking matter, Gilley said.

"It's like chatter on a radar screen. Some activity comes up and gradually
goes away. With meth, the chatter came up and stayed up," he said.
"Reformed dopers told us, 'This is bad stuff. You can't let this (get out
of control).' "

It's too early to measure the influence of the Minnesota program, said
Deborah Durkin, meth programs coordinator for the Minnesota Department of
Health.

While meth lab busts have declined in each of the last two years there,
authorities wonder if "cooks" actually are becoming more savvy about
staying on the move to evade detection. There's also evidence that some
drugs found in the state are being produced elsewhere, she said.

But it's crucial for communities to find ways to raise the awareness and
improve collaboration among law enforcement, county agencies, businesses
and schools because the Midwest is the nation's hottest meth-production
area now, Durkin said.

When she was told of Harrison County's effort, she said: "It's good that
they're doing this now."