By Scott North and Janice Podsada
Herald Writers
It looks benign, like table salt or something you might stir into your coffee.
But methamphetamine – known on the street as crank, crystal, stove top, yellow bam or redneck cocaine – is destroying lives in Snohomish County.
Rarely seen here until about five years ago, meth is now the most popular hard drug on the street. It is cheap, relatively simple to manufacture and as popular with some young people as the latest boy band or video game.
Nobody knows for sure just how many youths are using the drug, but a statewide survey three years ago found that roughly one in 10 high school seniors had tried meth at least once. Over the last three years, the number of meth-related cases in the county has more than tripled.
“There are kids in every high school in Snohomish County using meth,” said Pat Slack, commander of the Snohomish County Regional Drug Task Force, which investigates drug crime throughout the county, including school grounds. “What we don’t know is if it is 5 percent or 55 percent.”
Sheriff Rick Bart said he hears from people every day, from every corner of the county, who are struggling to save an addicted child, brother or parent.
“We are wasting kids,” he said.
National studies show that 22 percent of all meth users are 18 or younger. Another 35 percent are 18 to 23. Washington ranks as the third-highest meth-producing state, and Snohomish County is among the top five counties in Washington where meth labs have been discovered, according to the state Department of Ecology, which tracks places where toxic chemical cleanup is necessary. Meth is unusually addictive, flooding the brain’s pleasure centers with a supercharged jolt of chemicals that cause feelings of well-being. It is a long-lasting high, but one that comes at a terrible price. Users need increasing quantities of the drug. They stop eating and stop sleeping, and become increasingly paranoid, violent and impulsive as the drug becomes the center of their universe.
Addiction can occur with as little as four to six doses of meth, according to the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded law enforcement partnership that includes Snohomish County.
Look below the surface of many local crimes and you will find meth, said John Adcock, a deputy prosecutor who has spent the past six years specializing in cases involving drugs and violence. Unlike cocaine, which must be imported from South America, meth can be manufactured with readily available materials, such as over-the-counter cold medicines, batteries and industrial solvents.
The profits to be made from manufacturing and selling the drug are too great a lure for many, Adcock said. And many of the “cooks” are users themselves.
On one level, meth is the bathtub gin, the moonshine of the new century. But unlike the illegal booze that was once brewed in hidden stills in places such as Whiskey Ridge in Marysville, meth can kill. Its purity and chemical composition are unknown until after it is zipping through the user’s brain.
“Why would you put anything in your body that some drug-addled moron cooked up in his kitchen?” Adcock asked. “This stuff is not approved by the FDA.”
You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431
or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.
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