WHAT MAKES METH SO BAD

Paul Stevens couldn't figure out why so many meth addicts he came across had the same piece of busted equipment — a VCR.

The special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension had noticed the pattern for a while. One day in a meth user's home he saw a VCR with a screwdriver jammed into it. He thought the resident might be hiding drugs. That wasn't the case.

Said Stevens: "They're so paranoid, they wonder where those people (on TV) are. They attack the VCRs with screwdrivers, hammers."

Paranoia is just one side effect of methamphetamine, a highly addictive illegal drug increasingly taking hold across Minnesota.

Reported meth activity in the state doubled between 2002 and 2003, by one measure, and related prison sentences jumped to 38 percent of drug offenses in 2002, from 14 percent in 1996. About 75 percent of Minnesota's labs are outstate. In just one county, Pine, officials spent more than $980,000 on meth-related costs in 2003 — one-eighth of the county's net tax levy.

As the drug's popularity grows in the state, so does its far-ranging, devastating effect: jails are packed with inmates who need health care, kids are being permanently removed from their parents, addicts face the challenge of trying to kick a powerfully addicting stimulant and law enforcement agencies struggle for resources to battle the growing number of labs. In addition, meth is reaching new populations, recently prompting concerns among school personnel and American Indian leaders.

"We have not hit our peak with methamphetamine yet in Minnesota," said Brent Lindgren, Mille Lacs County sheriff.

Unlike other narcotics, the powerful man-made stimulant can keep users awake for weeks. It can provoke psychotic violence, unlike marijuana, and is easier to make than cocaine, the only illegal drugs that are more pervasive in the state. Meth — also called speed, crank or ice — is so addicting that jailed users who make bail may be arrested for taking the drug a second time before their first court appearance, sheriffs say.

"When you think you've heard the worst in human nature," Stevens said, "come see a meth head. Methamphetamine just grabs your soul and it doesn't let go."

"(They're) thin, sunken-eyed, sores on their face, teeth rotted out. They scratch all the time, can't stay on topic. They're extremely paranoid," said Kanabec County Sheriff Steve Schulz. "They have a lot of issues, physical and psychological."

The use of methamphetamine, a neurotoxin, is also linked to speeding hearts, pounding blood pressure, damaged blood vessels, skin abscesses and memory loss.

Patrick McVenes, 44, of Mankato, Minn., used the drug to keep awake while running heavy equipment in a steelyard. He became addicted and spent his off hours partying and dealing drugs to feed his habit. He lost his family and landed in prison. He vows to stay clean. "I don't want to die in prison," he says, "and that's what'll happen. I lost a lot already."

The problems posed by methamphetamine's spread in Minnesota are proving hard to solve because of the unique and wide-ranging impact of the drug.

Its ingredients include over-the-counter cold remedies, batteries, brake cleaner and farm fertilizer that are easy to come by — unlike the coca leaves used to make cocaine — and easy to combine, for those who can stomach the stink and the risk of an explosion. Meth cookers use chemical processes in makeshift "labs" that can fit in the trunk of a car.

Cops and others say more than 90 percent of addicts who quit meth will start using again. Treatment experts dispute that figure and contend that while meth poses unique challenges, recovery is possible.

Former meth addict and dealer Ralph Larson, currently housed at the Douglas County Jail, took his last hit on July 13, 2000, about 20 minutes before narcotics investigators arrested him. He quit in jail, and he couldn't sleep for two weeks. When he finally slept, he dreamed of meth.

"These people are completely dangerous. They're different from any other person I've bought drugs from. Their aggression is above and beyond any other drug. There are more guns, more explosives, more booby traps in meth labs than in crack houses," the Martin County investigator said.

Meth's effects reach beyond users. Proximity to the chemicals can make children ill, and in-utero exposure can lead to a condition called "worm heart," which requires surviving infants to have major surgery.

The drug also causes environmental problems derived from its distinctive, homegrown manufacturing process. It can be cooked in car trunks, homes, hotels, fish houses and farm fields, and making a pound of meth creates five to seven pounds of hazardous waste that cookers must dump somewhere. Polluted sites may require costly cleanup, or remediation, to be safely returned to their original use.

Each polluted site — and Minnesota is home to thousands, experts say — could be considered the environmental equivalent of an old gas station. Volunteer roadside cleanup crews find remnants of meth-making, such as cold-medicine boxes and empty plastic buckets. Officials warn people how to spot icehouse labs, from which waste may be dumped right into a lake.

Deborah Durkin, an environmental scientist with the Minnesota Health Department's meth lab program, travels the state to teach about the drug. She often finds herself in rooms filled with worried police, teachers, social workers and, inevitably, grieving families.

"This isn't like anything else we've seen. This is costing us more societally and economically than any other drug phenomenon," Durkin said.

Meth was smuggled from Taiwan and South Korea into Hawaii in the 1980s. By 1990, its presence had grown in the U.S. mainland, according to the Koch Crime Institute, a national organization aimed at understanding the causes of crime.

It has long been reported as the dominant drug problem in the San Diego area and has spread across the west and southwest. About 8.8 million people, 4 percent of the U.S. population, reported having tried meth in a survey in 2000, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

It's hard to say when meth entered Minnesota, but Mille Lacs County Undersheriff Alan Marxhausen says he tracked the emergence of labs in central Minnesota in the mid-1990s to an individual who was a meth cooker from Washington state.

The man was advanced a plane ticket against his future earnings to come and set up operations near Princeton, Minn.

Minnesota's meth today comes from local cookers as well as interstate drug runners. About 80 percent is imported from "superlabs," many of which are in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Mexico, said Peterson, the Martin County investigator, who also serves on the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force in southern Minnesota.

Bags of meth are often tucked into cars cruising into the state on Interstate 90 or Interstate 35. They may be packed with peppercorns to mask the strong chemical smell.

Meth labs hit rural areas first because it's easier to obtain farm fertilizer and distant neighbors are less likely to smell the odor, described as similar to cat urine. But the number of labs is growing steadily, even in urban areas. In recent years, Minneapolis police have found labs in Uptown and on the North Side. Washington County authorities took down a lab in a middle-class neighborhood in Oakdale in 2003.

Motorcycle gangs once dominated distribution, and users were characterized as blue-collar workers.

Both trends are changing. Meth is now being reported in Minnesota schools and on its Indian reservations, and a broad cross-section of people use it.

Meth offenders are driving up prison populations significantly, the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission found, contributing to increased bricks-and-mortar costs for taxpayers.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty has asked the Legislature to consider spending $74.9 million to expand the Faribault prison, and corrections officials hope for a second phase that would bring the bill to about $100 million.

Taxpayers are also on the hook for longer stays for addicts in jail and, often, for their subsequent medical care.

For example, dentists yanked 43 meth-rotted teeth last year from the mouths of inmates at the Pine County Jail, causing officials to switch dentists to save $23 a tooth.

"It's not like one or two. We're talking most of an inmate's teeth," jail administrator Rick Boland said.

The Pine County Jail spent $132,974 on meth-related costs in 2003, an estimate Sheriff Mark Mansavage called conservative. Some factors: Judges keep bails high so addicts don't leave jail to cook again, which means longer jail stays. And the long prison sentences for such crimes mean inmates often fight in court instead of pleading guilty, he said.

To grasp the frustrations of paying for the cost of addiction, visit Sheriff Schulz's office in the Kanabec County Courthouse. He'll show you the blister-pack pills used for inmates' prescription medicines.

The single-use packages let him return unused medicines for refunds. The sheriff doesn't yet know how much money he'll save, but it's not enough: Although the county allotted the jail $25,000 last year for medicine, he spent $47,809.

"It's primarily methamphetamine-related costs," Schulz said, adding that addicted inmates often need anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medication. His small jail holds about 22 inmates; he houses another 35 elsewhere. Schultz said about 70 percent of those inmates use meth, a figure consistent with the estimates of some other outstate sheriffs.

Alan Peterson, the Kanabec County coordinator, said the $47,809 figure was a huge hit to take in a budget where savings come in hundred-dollar increments.

County residents have made it clear they'd like better funding for extension services and children's 4-H programs, Peterson said, but "instead of taking care of our kids, we're taking care of the medical expenses of meth users."

In Alexandria, Lt. Bill McKay, assistant jail administrator, often has to separate meth users from other inmates because of their hallucinations. "One of them was seeing Janet Reno all the time," McKay said.

Douglas County learned a financial lesson when a home lab exploded in Alexandria this past July. Two suspects who were burned in the fire were jailed, McKay said.

In an unusual decision, those suspects were released before trial, "mainly because their medical bills would have been extremely expensive," McKay said.

"We would have had to pay for it and tried to get the money back from them. Whereas when they were released, they were covered under their dad's insurance."

While individual counties are seeing direct impact, state prisons are also burdened.

Nanette Schroeder, health services director for the Minnesota Corrections Department, said because many inmates who do meth also smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, it's difficult to specify which health needs are driven by meth use.

But she is sure that meth-related illnesses are driving up health costs in prison, where offenders pay only a $3 copay when they seek an appointment and the state is responsible for the rest.

Those costs will increase as more meth offenders reach prison, and the percentages are jumping.

In 1996, 48 percent of drug offenders sentenced to prison were there because of cocaine, compared with 14 percent for all amphetamines.

Cocaine claimed 40 percent of all cases in 2002, but methamphetamine/amphetamine offend-ers had grown to 38 percent, according to the state sentencing guidelines commission.

"Are there a lot of psychological medications because of this drug? Yes," he said.

"Is the United States in a lot of trouble down the road because of this drug? Yeah, probably. We don't know what will happen 10 years from now. It's wrecking a lot of good people."

Authorities estimate they find children at more than 30 percent of Minnesota meth labs.

Those children must be checked for heavy metals, meth, physical or sexual abuse, leading to clinic visits costing $175-$230 apiece and sometimes emergency room visits of $1,500, according to Olmsted County public health data.

Dan Papin, director of Washington County Community Services, offers an example of a methamphetamine case involving the parent of three children younger than 8. It would cost the county about $28,000 in staff time, therapy and placement costs, Papin said, calling those figures conservative.

Washington County had 427 assessments for children's services in 2003, and about 225 involved meth use by the parent or a child as young as 14, said Tammy Kincaid, children's services intake and assessment supervisor.

Timothy Hofmann, 39, from North Minneapolis, said his addiction to the drug made parenting impossible. When meth takes hold, "it's got you 100 percent," he said. "When you wake up, the first thing on your mind is not your kids, it's the drugs."

At the end of January, a 9-month-old girl was left in a 17-degree apartment in Ashby, Minn., tears frozen on her cheeks. The baby's mother told police she had taken meth and left her baby to flee people who were out to get her.

That infant joined a growing group of Minnesota children who risk being permanently placed away from their parents because of meth.

The trend is stark, according to a December 2003 report by the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota. Out-of-home placements due to parental chemical abuse increased 82.3 percent in greater Minnesota counties from 2000 to 2002. By contrast, placements statewide declined during the same period.

The study tracked parental drug abuse in general, not meth in particular, but it found a correlation between out-of-home placements due to parent drug use and the number of reported meth labs seized in the county.

And kids who are temporarily removed from home due to parental drug abuse may never live with mom and dad again, the study found. In cases that don't involve drugs, the vast majority of children eventually may return to parents.

Pat Hass, Pine County's health and human services director, summed up the impact of meth addiction on families:

"You have a rigid, colicky baby with medical issues in a household where parents are using methamphetamine and are paranoid and even irrational. What kind of a combination is that?" Hass asked. "I'm concerned about losing more than one generation. I'm afraid of losing two."

It only took one hit to hijack Ralph Larson's life, which experts say is one of the troubling aspects of meth addiction.

Larson was in downtown St. Paul in 1996 when some people offered him a yellowish powder called meth.

"I tried a line and it felt like my nose was going to burn off my face, but the effect of this drug … it gave me a boost and I mean a boost!" wrote Larson, 40, of Lake Elmo, in a letter about his addiction.

"I partied all night," he said, and his monthly use doubled by early 1997. "Within a short period of time I had to have this drug just to function like normal people do."

He once stayed awake for 10 days in a row, taking hits as he tired. Nine of his teeth rotted and had to be pulled. He hallucinated, seeing "shadow people" lurking along the edge of his vision.

"You're not human when you're doing meth because all you care about is getting high," he said. "I've seen people peel their face off while high … They would look in the mirror and keep scratching and opening up facial wounds."

Larson and three other former dealers sat in a sparse conference room in the Douglas County Jail annex on a snowy January day, describing their addictions to meth. The drug landed all of them in Alexandria, where they build homes and pray to God to stay clean.

Dan O'Neill, of St. Paul, who has been clean since 1999, worries that meth has "scattered" his brain.

Hofmann, the former addict from North Minneapolis, used to do so much meth, he said at one point he saw it come out of his skin.

"I've seen crystals on myself, like a little snowflake that comes through my pores," he said. He remembers thinking, "Whoa! Dope's coming out of my skin!"

A health department official said such stories likely result from skin loss due to damaged blood vessels.

Hofmann sees life differently these days. He has been drug-free for more than three years, and eagerly showed a visitor pictures of the affordable homes built through the state prison system's Institution Community Work Crew program.

Because addicts are paranoid and labs are often booby-trapped, arresting addicts is dangerous, and a lack of funding makes it harder for police to do their jobs safely.

Cops trained to bust meth labs have stopped at a central Minnesota McDonald's for free straws because they lacked money for pipettes to collect samples, said Paul Stevens, the BCA special agent.

Pine County Sheriff Mark Mansavage combs for grants to boost his budget, a practice he says is increasingly important in "the war on meth." His office received a $20,000 grant for homeland security and drug inquiries that will mean more masks, vests, weapons and barricades for his emergency response team.

"The ones we go up against will match up or outdo us for weapons," Mansavage said. "They're getting more professional, bringing in body guards, booby traps."

Stevens, co-director of the Midwest Governors Conference on Methamphetamine, begged a state lawmaker last January for $600,000 to outfit officers short-term. There are no funding streams for safety clothes, filters, gloves, boots and chemical suits, he said.

"Some of these guys are using (single-use) suits three or four times," he said. "It's like sending a fireman to a fire without a helmet, jacket or gloves."

Even when materials are available, manpower can be scarce. Cooperation among agencies is high, many in law enforcement said, but tough decisions must be made about using those resources.

Schulz, the Kanabec County sheriff, has six patrol officers and one investigator, so he is pragmatic about the 30 labs believed to operate in his county. He relies on a dangerous but effective tactic: He grabs Investigator Brian Smith and they head out for "knock-and-talks." The two show up at suspected labs and warn people to shut down, leave or prepare to be arrested.

Stevens called the "knock-and-talk" method dangerous, but added: "It works. These people are so paranoid it's one way to drive them out. The trouble is, all it does is move them on to another town."

Meth use is linked to other crimes, from identity theft and check forgeries to burglaries, which further strains agencies. Smith said that 75 percent of his overall caseload is related to meth use, as are 95 percent of his burglaries.

As tactics to fight methamphetamine evolve, so do the tactics to create the drug.

Mansavage, the Pine County sheriff, learned this month that cookers are using two new products to obtain meth ingredients: salt blocks with ephedrine intended for sick farm animals, and power pole transformers, which can be cannibalized for a chemical replacement for anhydrous ammonia.

"Power outages are going to have to be investigated as possible meth activity," Mansavage said. "There's no end to it."

"Who has to pay to rehab the addicts? The working, taxpayer types? Or would the addict at least pay their own rehab? Some addicts have too high a failure rate --- something like 90% for meth addicts --- it's too futile, too expensive to teach them --- they aren't teachable."

That's just not true. I do not know exactly what the success rate is for our drug court program, but most of the people make it through the 15 month program and they are drug tested so often that it would be nearly impossible to cheat the entire way through without being caught and bing sent to jail. Over half cheat at first, but as they get caught and go to jail and see those around them getting caught and going to jail most of them get the picture, stop hanging around anyone who gets high so as to alleviate the temptation to chat, and they leave the stuff alone. By the time they get through the program most have fattened up, gotten the color back in their skin and they seem to be doing great. I couldn't tell you what the success rate is as far as getting these people off meth for good but I expect it's much higher than 10%.

Drug court is not a very expensive program. I am not paid any extra for the hours I donate to the program. It's just an extra few hours per week I handle in addition to my standard caseload. The state provides a probation officer and a drug counselor. These people also have other duties besides our small drug court. Sometimes we send some of the really hardcore addicts off to in patient treatment for 45 to 90 days and that is often paid for by the state. That happens with less than 10% of the people in the program. Others are sent to rehab that they must pay for themselves. Also, the people in the program pay $50 a month. It's not much, but it does at least defer some of the drug testing costs and we didn't want to set these people up for failure.

The cost for drug court, treatment and all, is only a tiny fraction of what it costs to send these people to prison. Some of these people end up going to prison anyway, but still we are saving a fortune. Let me give you a for instance. I pled a lady into drug court a few months ago. The prosecutor almost didn't go for it because the lady was charged with cooking meth. He wanted her to plead to 20 years with 10 suspended and she would not have been eligible for parole for 7 years. She paid for her own 45 day rehab and the prosecutor showed a rare moment of compassion and let her plead into drug court. This lady has been doing great, she's been an inspiration and a real asset in the program and I'd say there is a high likelihood she won't go back to what she was doing. The taxpayers saved over hundred grand just on that lady. And had she gone to prison she'd have gotten zero drug treatment, she probably would have been able to get drugs there, and she'd probably have come out of it worse off than she was when she went into it. Not only that, but her three children would have been wards of the state. Now, she has custody of her baby and is working to get her other two kids back. Again, the state is saving thousands of dollars.

You have to look at the big picture. Addicts are going to cost us one way or another. It makes sense to try to minimize those costs. Much of the time no jail or actual in patient treatment is required. Sometimes we do need to provide a little bit of treatment if the situation calls for it. Sometimes a little attitude adjustment through jail time is all that's required. Sometimes though none of that will work and the best thing to do is send them off for 9 months to a year at a minimum security community punishment facility where they will lead structured lives, be drug tested frequently, receive some drug treatment and counseling and have to work through some behavior modification steps like the Moral Recognition Therapy (MRT) program used at our Community Correction Centers, our drug court, and several similar programs throughout the country.

Regular prison should only be used as a last resort and I would think only if these people are committing other more serious crimes than simple drug crimes. The only thing plain old fashioned prison is good for is keeping really bad people off the streets away from the rest of us. It does not tend to change the offenders for the better, and the cold hard fact of the matter is that they are going to get out someday and probably be worse burdens on society when they do get out.

You make some assertions about meth addicts that are dead wrong. Ninety percent of the people in our drug court program were using meth. Many of them were hardcore addicts. They were strung out and in really bad shape when we got them. Some of these folks do fail out of our program, but most make it. They start looking so much healthier. The bags disappear from under their eyes. That "tweaker" look tends to go away. They fatten up. They all have to get jobs, pay their child support, get transportation and stable living arrangements. Many of them save up their money and go to the dentist to get their bad teeth fixed. Their futures brighten up, and I have to say I am just proud to know most of these people. We had drug court today and one lady actually brought me a flower with a card thanking me for getting her into the program and helping her change her life. I must admit I don't get flowers very often (ever) but many if not most of these people do appreciate the chance they are given through this system.

"I've known cocaine and alcohol addicts who were only able to start their rehab after going to jail --- it gave them a time out on their drug, allowed their minds to clear for once and think about rehab --- plus the fear of being locked up without the drug seemed to motivate them to clean up --- and none had signed up for a voluntary program until there was jail time. It seemed like they must have thought if they keep on the way they were going they were going to be locked up without their fix -- and being locked up is horrible so they might as well try to get some control."

I agree that many of these people have to go to jail before they are ready for rehab. Part of the addiction and recovery process is that these people often have to hit rock bottom before they can admit that they have a problem. One of the key components to addiction is denial. I've seen people get in trouble time and time again such that it is obvious to me and everyone else around them that they have serious problems but these people will continue to insist that they are just casual users who could quit any time they wanted.

There are certainly people though who go into treatment all own their own without being forced into it and without ever having even been arrested. The biggest problem there is money though. I had an old case from private practice that I just finished up a couple of months ago where a client had gone to his employer of 13 years and told them he had a problem with meth. His company sent him to rehab, paid for it, paid him while he was in rehab and then soon after he got out they actually gave him a promotion. That was three or four years ago. Since then his life has turned around for the better. He's continued to do well in work and we got him custody of his child.

Not everyone has an employer like this fellow who will go the extra mile and get their employees drug treatment. Many of these people can't even hold down jobs. There may be places in America where these people can just check themselves into drug treatment anyway free of charge, but it isn't that way here. There is a place with limited space available where they might be able to check themselves into that will bill them seven or eight hundred dollars or so later on, but the thought of having to wait on a waiting list and then have another big bill to pay scares these people away. Also, it's only a short program that isn't very effective and once these people go once, relapse and neglect to pay the treatment bill, they aren't welcomed back.

Drug addicts almost always relapse several times before they kick their habits. That's just a fact of life. It has nothing to do with disrespect for the law, lack of love for those close to them or anything like that, it's just that addiction can be a difficult if not impossible thing to beat. It's hard for any addict. Their brains have physically changed as a result of their addictions. Studies have even shown that some synapses quit firing and it takes a while to get things re-routed and working right again. This is especially true with meth addicts who seem night and day different as the months progress in their treatment.

If it were up to me, people caught with a small amount of illegal drugs like LSD or other non-addictive drugs would receive a fine and maybe have to take a drug education class to show them how what they are doing could hurt them. They'd get at most a misdemeanor conviction, if it wasn't just shown as a violation like a traffic ticket. People caught with addictive drugs like heroin or meth would have to go through a period of between 60 to 90 days where they had to undergo frequent drug tests, sometimes several a week. They'd have to call in everyday and report within a couple of hours if they are told to give a sample. Some samples would be tested for all drugs, some for some drugs and some not tested at all. Sometimes saliva tests could be performed to switch it up and minimize the possibility that people could get aways with cheating. The offenders would not know what tests were to be performed, and they would be required to pay for the tests either up front or through a payment plan. Upon completion of the testing period if they pass all the tests and complete an extended probation period lasting a few months with no further offenses, the cases would be dismissed without showing a criminal record other than a violation or at most a misdemeanor.

If people couldn't go the 60 or 90 days clean or if there were other reasons to suspect they were addicts and not just casual users, they would be forced into a drug court type program. I'd even consider small time dealers and even people out there cooking meth in their kitchens for something like this because most of the time these are just addicts trying to get high, selling whatever is left over to other people not unlike them. Most of them aren't making any money to speak of with their drug involvement. Most cannot even afford to pay their regular bills, let alone pay for a lawyer. I'd rather see them getting off drugs, getting jobs, and becoming responsible members of the community rather then wasting space in the prison that we could be using for child molesters, violent criminals and the like.

Today I pled three people into drug court. One had three counts of breaking or entering, one count of forgery and one count of theft of property, all drug related. Another had one count of theft of property, also drug related. Another had two counts of obtaining a prescription by fraud, after he stole pain medicine prescriptions from a neighbor. Each one of these people will go to three group meetings, three NA or AA meetings, one meeting with his probation officer and one with his drug counselor, as well as one court appearance, every single week. After three months or so when (if) they get out of "Phase One," there will be fewer meetings every week and court only every other week. A few months later they'll probably make it to "Phase Three" and have fewer meetings still. Each will be drug tested at least once a week, and sometimes several times a week.

Our drug court has a solid track record and it is the one always used as an example for how drug courts should be run in our state. We have people coming in from other parts of the state to observe all the time. Our judge is strict, and he tries to be as consistent, although some situations require differing remedies. In those situations he always asks for input from the group in drug court, which is a fairly interactive place. People get three strikes. On the fourth strike they are kicked out of the program.

The judge is fairly consistent with the strike system and with giving everyone the same punishments for each strike, but sometimes will throw in different punishments for other contemptuous conduct. Today for example, someone was sentenced to 30 days on his first strike and sent back to the beginning of phase one after several months in the program because he got caught trying to use someone else's urine for a drug test. Normally first strike would have only been two weekends in jail.

Missing court or required meetings is usually a strike but sometimes if there is a good enough excuse and the probation officer and drug counselor inform the court that the person has been trying hard he won't get a strike but might get some jail time or be required to do extra NA meetings. Failing a drug test or failing to report for one is always a strike. On occasion though, when we get a really hardcore type who gets in the program and right away either goes on a binge or never gets off the one he was one when he pled in, the judge will put him in jail and then as soon as a slot opens get him into drug treatment for 45 to 90 days, either at the defendant's expense or the state's, depending on the defendant's ability to pay and whether we have a slot open that the state will pay for. We only get precious few of those each year. After these people dry out they come back into the strike program and basically start all over, usually just showing one strike against them even if they might have racked up two or three or more in a short period of time while they were on their binge.

As I said, on first strike people normally get two weekends in jail. On second strike it's 15 days and on the third strike it used to be 120 in the community correction center (CCC) where they have drug treatment. But lately third strike has been a seven month sentence because it takes three or for months for a slot to open up in the CCC during which time these people just wait it out in jail. The extra time the judge is giving is in hopes that they'll have the 120 drug treatment program in the CCC and not spend all the time in the jail, where all the inmates do is talk about cooking dope and how they can't wait to get out and get high. On fourth strike these people are booted from the program and then usually get a year in the CCC or worse, depending on whether they are eligible for the minimum security CCC, what their underlying charges were, and what they did to get booted from the program.

Drug court is not a slap on the wrist, and it is certainly not easy. Programs like this are a step in the right direction. These are human beings we are dealing with. I don't look at any of them as throw aways who we should turn our backs on. Many of them are good people who will be assets in the community. Prison won't help them, and we aren't saving money when we refuse to try to help these people with their drug problems. Drug court is much, much cheaper than prison. Those community correction centers are often cheaper than prison. Our's are cheaper than our prisons and prison costs in our state are among the lowest in the nation (around $14,000 annual cost per inmate) because most of our prisons are prison farms (awful places to be though). The CCC's have close to the same annual costs even with the treatment and counseling because they are minimum security with far fewer guards. Total per inmate costs are much lower though because prisoners spend sentences that on average are much shorter at the CCC because the whole behavior modification/treatment program only takes nine months to a year to complete. And the best thing is that recidivism rates are much lower from the community correction centers than they are from prison.

Certainly part of that is because they don't let violent offenders or sex offenders or the hardest of the criminals into the CCC, but also I am convinced that a good part of the reason for the lower recidivism rates is the general attitude of caring of the people who run those facilities and the attempts made to rehabilitate these people. I have talked to many people who have come out of that program who say that it helped them grow up and it saved their lives. The reports I get from the regular prison usually involve stories of violence, homosexual rape, and drug use. It's extremely rare to hear someone talk about how that type of prison helped them become better people. Most of the people who go there will be going back.

Sorry to go on and on. It just really bothers me when I hear all of these attitudes being expressed in these forums about how we need to nail all of these "dopers" to the wall. Some people even suggest killing drug users and small time dealers and addicts who cook dope in their kitchens. I really don't think most people have any clue what they are talking about. We have something like 2.2 million people locked up in this country. The people locked up in prisons and jails in this country account for about 25% of all of the people locked up in this world, even though we in the U.S. only make up less than 5% of the world's population. We lock up more people than they do in Russia or China. We lock up more people than they do in all of the countries in the European Union combined.

Largely I think this is due to ignorance about what prison is actually good for. For the most part, all standard prison is good for is keeping really bad people off the streets and away from the rest of us. All of that nonsense about sending a message to others who might commit crimes is highly overrated. If you think that people are learning their lessons and learning how to be good citizens in prison, think again because usually they are learning exactly the opposite. We do need to work on our drug addiction problem in this country, but just as importantly, we need to work on our addiction to imprisoning people. This is America for God's sake, land of the free. There is no excuse for us having the highest incarceration rates in the world.

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