USA: Addict sentenced amid protest

A 35-year-old methamphetamine addict was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison Friday as a judge said voters mandated the term when the "three-strikes" ballot measure was enacted in 1994.

As emotions erupted around him, Randall Anthony Severdia of Novato was stoic as he heard the ruling by Marin Superior Court Judge Stephen Graham. He briefly looked at a courtroom full of family, friends and sobriety supporters.

His mother, Helen Severdia-Lux of Novato, burst into sobs as Graham read the terms of his judgment. Others wept quietly, and one woman stormed out of the courtroom, saying she couldn't listen anymore.

The sentencing capped a tense morning during which Severdia's supporters vowed that he was a changed man since he was incarcerated in August and joined a 90-day jailhouse drug recovery program in the unit known as C Pod.

He has since graduated and volunteered to work with other inmates struggling with addiction. The defense hoped Graham would strike the previous crimes and grant him treatment and parole.

Severdia was arrested Aug. 3 for evasion of a police officer, having stolen property and possession of methamphetamine. He pleaded guilty to felony evasion and admitted to two prior residential burglaries and a bank robbery.

Deputy District Attorney Murat Ozgur said Severdia passed a California Highway Patrol officer as he was speeding down Highway 101 during the morning commute. He was wearing a helmet with the word "criminal" on it and stickers that looked like bullet holes. On his jacket was the number 415, a reference to the penal code for disturbing the peace.

Ozgur said the officer followed Severdia to the Sausalito exit, where he ran a red light on Bridgeway, turned around and entered the northbound lanes of the highway, accelerating to more than 120 mph.

He exited on Paradise Drive in Corte Madera and drove the wrong way down Redwood Highway. Officers found Severdia lying in ivy on Tamalpais Drive near Highway 101. The motorcycle, which had been stolen, was on the ground with a flat tire.

"The defendant's criminal history is long and extensive," Ozgur said. "The defendant has a juvenile history in Marin County that spans back to 1984."

Severdia's bank robbery conviction sent him to state prison for three years and eight months. "The defendant is posing as someone who is now ready to change," Ozgur said. "The fact of the matter is the defendant is a criminal - the defendant should not have the benefit of these strikes being stricken."

Defense attorney Scott Guite noted that his client's strikes were committed in or before 1992. He said probation officers had determined at the time that Severdia was in need of treatment for drug dependency but found it would be useless.

"I agree with that, at that particular point in time, he was out of control - immature," Guite said. "It seems to be unanimous that at this point in his life, it would do him some good. He is doing everything he can possibly do in C Pod and trying to help others."

Standing before the court, Severdia spoke slowly, telling Graham he was nervous. "I'm just kinda glad I'm feeling at all," Severdia said, as tears welled and spilled down his cheeks. "I just want to apologize to my family and the officer I ran from, and, ah, just, I'm just not the same person I was when I came here.

"I'm just sorry."

In handing down the sentence, Graham addressed the spectators, saying he appreciated their attendance. "You need to understand, I can't make this up as I go along," Graham said. "I am dealing with two legal statutes that say I send Mr. Severdia to state prison. There are some exceptions that can be found in some cases."

Graham said that Severdia and Guite did an excellent job in negotiating with the district attorney's office and getting the charges down to one 25-years-to-life sentence instead of three. "It isn't that I get to do what I want. I am not here as a king or a legislator," Graham said. "The way the three-strikes law is written, I don't have a lot of slough room."

Graham, a former federal drug prosecutor, said the three-strikes law was written for public protection. "I cannot honestly say that I find sufficient good reasons to justify a deviation from the statute," Graham said.

Outside the courtroom, Severdia's mother was stunned.

"I'm kind of in shock. I just can't believe it," Severdia-Lux said. "None of Randy's crimes were violent - they all had to do with the fact that he was on drugs."

She noted he has a newborn and added the judge was "just so harsh and uncompassionate."

Brother Ron Severdia, 37, of Mill Valley said the family would meet with Guite to consider filing an appeal.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Sat, 22 April 2006
Source: Marin Independent Journal (California, USA)
Author: Nancy Isles Nation
Website: http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_3739269

USA: Drug dependency in the US: The Crystal Craze

Across the mountains and prairies of America, a generation of young people is falling victim to methamphetamine addiction and state authorities are struggling to cope. By Andrew Buncombe

Even when she was stealing money from her nine-year-old niece to fund her habit Sarah Bright was certain she did not have a problem with methamphetamine. When she got up in the middle of the night and paranoically wandered around her garden, convinced that FBI agents were stalking her, she thought she was in control. She did not have a problem with drugs, she told herself. Everything was cool.

Today, two years after she first experimented with the drug and four months since she last indulged in a habit that had taken over her life, the teenager thinks differently. "Once you start taking drugs you turn into a nasty, horrible person," she said. "I treated people like crap. My only goal was to get money to get meth."

If Sarah sounds like the poster child in a drug prevention campaign that's because she is. The 17-year-old from Missoula is one of handful of young people featured in a new series of anti-meth advertisements launched this week in Montana where authorities are struggling to deal with the highly addictive and destructive drug that has become the scourge of rural America.

Much more so than cocaine, crack, heroin or marijuana, smalltown USA is steadily falling prey to a drug more commonly known as crank, glass or crystal. Originally produced using over-the-counter medication containing ephedrine bought from "mom and pop" drug stores, use of the drug has steadily increased, with production taken over by "super-labs" in Mexico and trafficked by Hispanic gangs.

The Big Sky state of Montana, famed for its mountains and sweeping prairies, is one of the front lines in the effort to combat the drug. In the 10 years from 1992, the number of people admitted for meth addiction in the state jumped by 520 per cent. Today, in places such as Missoula where Norman MacLean set his haunting novella A River Runs Through It, later made into a movie by Robert Redford and starring Brad Pitt, 9.3 per cent of teenagers say they have tried the drug, compared to a national average of 6.3 per cent.

Easy to make, cheap to buy and with an initial soaring energising "high" some users have likened to "having 10 orgasms at once", meth has found ready users among teenagers as well as young mothers with children looking to get through a busy day. Its ability to suppress appetite and help weight-loss has lured many young women to experiment. Meth can cost as little as $25 for quarter-gram and unlike any other drug, it is estimated that 50 per cent of meth users are women. "I was 15. It was lunchtime and a friend asked if I had ever done dope," says Caitlin Moe, 22, another former addict featured in the campaign.

"I asked what it would make me do and she said it would help me study really hard and give me energy. It sounded great. We snorted it and it did all those things. It made me feel on top of the world. I studied hard for the rest of the day. [But] from then on I had to have it all of the time."

Caitlin struggled with meth addiction for three years, lying to her parents, failing at school, losing friends. Having once quit and joined an outpatient drugs prevention programme, she started smoking meth the day the programme ended.

She eventually gave up after attending a boot camp in Utah, but even now she feels the temptation to try it again. "You became an excellent manipulator and liar, just so you can continue to use it" she said. " I did not think I had a problem. I could justify everything I did."

In Montana, the impact of meth on crime and health care is vast and is getting worse; 85 per cent of women inmates in the state prison are there because of meth-related crime, 70 per cent of the state's drug crimes are meth-related, and the number of people being admitted for treatment has increased by 70 per cent over the past six years.

Indeed, the scale of meth-related crime is such that the state's Department of Corrections has just approved the building of two new "meth prisons" . There will be an 80-inmate unit for men and a 40-inmate unit for women. Some of the worst problems have been seen in the state's Native American reservations where authorities say fewer police, the wide dispersal of residents and higher than usual poverty levels have helped produce a meth crisis.

The Montana Governor, Brian Schweitzer, recently told The New York Times: " It's destroying families, it's destroying our schools, it's destroying our budgets for corrections, social services [and] health care. We're losing a generation of productive people."

Montana's efforts to tackle meth have been funded by Thomas Siebel, a Silicon Valley billionaire, who spent much of his youth in the state and owns ranches there. He was told of the impact of the drug on law and order resources by the state's attorney general and decided to donate $5.6m (£3.1m) to fund a prevention campaign. The Montana Meth Project was born.

Taking its cue from professional advertising, the campaign commissioned focus-group studies of young people and discovered 43 per cent believed there were "benefits" associated with meth use, be it weight loss, additional energy or enhanced concentration. The result has been a television, radio and billboard and print campaign featuring a striking images and films.

One billboard advert in the state capital, Helena, shows a filthy public toilet with the message, "No one thinks they'll lose their virginity here. Meth will change that". One of the television adverts, which all feature actors, show a young woman plucking out all of her eyebrows, apparently unaware of what she is doing and oblivious to the pain.

Perhaps most striking are the 30-second radio clips by former addicts such as Sarah and Caitlin talking of their experiences. In her clip, Caitlin tells of the after-effects of one meth binge. "I felt like if I even moved an inch I would have a heart attack. My heart was beating so fast."

The campaign is the only state-wide prevention campaign in the nation and is being closely monitored by local authorities across the US also struggling to confront the problem. It has become the biggest advertiser in the state and an estimated 90 per cent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 see the adverts three times a week.

Montana is a vast space that is home to just 900,000 residents, the third most sparsely populated US state after Alaska and Wyoming. Peg Shea, executive director of the Montana Meth Project, said isolation and ignorance of the drug's dangers contributed to the problem. "Also this is the West," she said, as she drove to a public meeting in the Salish-Kootenai reservation town of Polsen. "The people who came here were pioneers. They take risks."

The road passed through the broad Missoula valley where spring will burst forth in weeks, filling the landscape with wildflowers. On the north side of the valley stood the snow-capped Mission Mountains. Did she think part of the problem with Montana's youth was boredom? "That's what the children tell us," she said. "Our campaign aims to have a knee-jerk reaction among kids so they don't even want to try it, to try and make it [produce a similar reaction] as heroin."

At the town meeting, the tribal police authority chief, Craig Couture, told how his officers devoted much of their time to handling meth dealers and addicts. And he spoke from personal experience; his younger brother was addicted to methamphetamine for years. Today he is clean. "There was a time when I told him I go was going to send him to prison. I told every police officer he was an addict. At the time he hated me. He told me I was going to find him dead."

Shaden, a 28-year-old member of the Salish-Kootenai tribe, is living in a treatment centre for women addicts in Missoula. She has three children by different fathers and she had taken meth for more than eight years, often injecting it. She stopped a few months ago. Her eyes looked dark and her body still twitched, something known among treatment experts as " tweaking".

She said she had grown up in a family where most of her relatives used meth and other drugs. "The worst thing is that you are so blind in your reality. You know in the back of your head not to take it. In the end I had no self worth, no self-esteem. I knew nothing was going to get better. I had to get away from my family. I was praying and crying."

Methamphetamine, synthesised in 1919 and closely related to the drug amphetamine, was given to troops during the Second World War as a stimulant. It sharply stimulates the central nervous system in a similar way to adrenalin, releasing large quantities of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is responsible for controlling movement, thought processes, emotions, and the pleasure centres of the brain.

Aside from the addiction, a downside of long-term meth use is that it damages those neuro-transmitters, making it harder for recovering addicts to experience pleasure. The cold turkey is very cold indeed.

Dr John Nautts, a specialist in addictive medicine with the West Montana Addiction Services, said users often suffered depression when they stop taking meth. "We try and treat this with antidepressants," he said. "[It also affects] memory and word recall." The drug is also a libido stimulant and several years ago there was great concern among sections of the gay community, especially in New York and San Francisco, that "crystal" abuse was responsible for a spike in HIV infection rates.

But the effects of meth abuse have struck hardest in the American heartland. In Oklahoma and Illinois, authorities have had to dramatically expand child support services to handle the numbers of "meth orphans" created by the arrest or imprisonment of addict parents.

Michael Walther, director of the National Drug Intelligence Centre (NDIC), said: "Over the past 10 years, methamphetamine trafficking and abuse has devastated individuals, families, and communities in western and midwestern states and has now spread eastward to nearly every area of the country. Addressing the challenges presented by this highly addictive drug, including laboratory cleanup, treatment for methamphetamine dependency, frequent child neglect, and other methamphetamine-related crimes, has greatly depleted state and local law enforcement and public health resources. "

The National Association of Counties says it is the biggest problem facing local authorities yet some campaigners say the federal government is not sufficiently addressing the issue. They say that while meth addiction is rampant in rural areas considered the bedrock of Republican support, Washington has been slow to act because the drug has not yet taken such a hold in east coast cities.

In Montana the biggest danger may be ignorance. Sarah, the young woman from the advertisements, said there had been no education about meth in her school. When she first took it she had no idea what she was getting into. She said: "I did not even get told what meth was."


Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Fri, 21 April 2006
Source: The Independent Online Edition (UK)
Author: Andrew Buncombe
Email: letters@ independent.co.uk
Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/
Copyright: 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

Australia: The World Today - WA crackdown on amphetamine use

ELEANOR HALL: Western Australia's Drug and Alcohol Office is about to release new guidelines for managing amphetamine users.

The move is in response to a rise in mental health problems caused by the abuse of amphetamines, particularly "ice".

WA has the highest rate of amphetamine use in Australia.

And it's estimated that amphetamine users make up more than 10 per cent of mental health admissions to hospitals.

In Perth, David Weber reports.

DAVID WEBER: The rate of amphetamine use in WA is more than four per cent of the population, where the national rate is just over three per cent.

The Executive Director of the Drug and Alcohol Office, Terry Murphy says most of the amphetamine abuse involves 'ice', which is more potent than traditional forms of speed. He says that between 60 to 80 per cent of amphetamine users are smoking ice.

Mr Murphy says there's been an attendant increase in those seeking help.

TERRY MURPHY: Our alcohol and drug treatments services, a quarter of their clients - and they saw 20,000 in this state last year - a quarter of them are there to deal with their amphetamine problem and our services are coping well.

With the mental health services, we are just about the release guidelines for mental health services to manage amphetamine related psychosis.

DAVID WEBER: Are these guidelines being developed because of the increase or is it because of the particular problems that those people have?

TERRY MURPHY: Well, it’s both. These people present the same problems as everybody else suffering their first psychosis, but they also present problems unique to their drug and alcohol use, of which amphetamines are a big part.

So, developing guidelines for mental health services helps them actually with the medical questions relate to their amphetamine use specifically.

DAVID WEBER: Is there a suggestion that people are falling through the cracks?

TERRY MURPHY: I don’t think so. I’m pretty confident that our drug and alcohol services are picking up the people who need treatment, but it’s important to always be vigilant because these people can be very difficult clients; they drop out of treatment early; they need often assertive follow up.

DAVID WEBER: The WA Network of Alcohol and other Drug Agencies says services have developed new levels of expertise to deal with the large numbers of amphetamine users.

The Network's Director, Jill Rundle says those who've abused amphetamines exhibit a unique mix of problems.

JILL RUNDLE: Erratic behaviour, different demands that they have on agencies. If they’re residential agencies, for example, they have sleep issues, they have a whole range of things; they often have violence or aggression issues, mood swings, a whole range of things.

DAVID WEBER: Have services been stretched?

JILL RUNDLE: They have indeed been stretched over the last few years, with the increasing numbers of amphetamine users. Absolutely.

Amphetamine users are more time consuming. There’s often more agencies that they need to work in partnership with, you know for case management, working with mental health services or working with justice or working with a whole range of other services to meet the complex needs of the consumer.

ELEANOR HALL: Jill Rundle is the Director of the Western Australian Network of Alcohol and other drug agencies. She was speaking to David Weber in Perth.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Thur, 20 April 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia -Web)
Reporter: David Weber
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/

New Zealand: Kiwi party pill research could lead to Oz ban - paper

Research showing overdoses with "herbal" party pills in New Zealand have resulted in hundreds of people needing hospital treatment may lead to the pills being banned in Australia.

A study, by Waikato Hospital's Dr Tonia Nicholson, found 125 of 1043 emergency admissions at a New Zealand hospital were the result of over-indulging in herbal party pills.

Cabinet Minister Jim Anderton, who is in charge of drugs policy, said in January there were three research projects currently underway into the effects of benzylpiperazine (BZP), the active ingredient in legal party pills.

If the pills, which can currently be sold to anyone over the age of 18, were proved sufficiently dangerous they could be banned, he said.

The stimulants produce effects similar to amphetamines: users risk organ damage, seizures, high blood pressure and hyperthermia by taking too many or mixing them with alcohol.

Dr Nicholson said one New Zealander had died after mixing BZP with amphetamines and two others had been in intensive care after taking the pills.

The pills have been responsible for hundreds of recent drug overdoses in New Zealand, and Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is deciding whether their key ingredients - pepper extracts benzylpiperazine (BZP) and trifluromethylpiperazine - should be slapped with Australia-wide sales restrictions, the Sun Herald newspaper reported in Melbourne.

BZP pills are illegal in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia and are not readily available in Victorian retail outlets.

National's Otago MP Jacqui Dean has previously called for the Government to impose tighter restrictions on advertising, banning the sale of pills from bars and liquor shops and keeping them under the counter and out of sight in shops.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Sat, 15 April 2006
Source: stuff.co.nz (New Zealand)
Website: http://www.stuff.co.nz/
Copyright: Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2006

USA: Airing the meth crisis is courageous and needed

Airing dirty laundry is uncomfortable, as Kathleen Wesley-Kitcheyan, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, indicated during the recent Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on methamphetamine use on reservations. But the meth problem is so overwhelming, she continued, it had to be done. Her brave and emotional testimony recounted an appalling string of personal tragedies, including the death of her own rodeo-champion nephew.

Indian country knows how painful it can be to share these stories with outsiders. The personal hurt is too often compounded by the incomprehension of the mainstream society. Well-intentioned interventions by non-Indians historically have caused even more disruption, turning tragedies into family and tribal catastrophes. And there are malevolent forces in the dominant culture that are more than happy to make propaganda out of the undeniable social ills. But these are risks that national Indian leaders have properly decided to take.

For more than a year, the National Congress of American Indians, the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance and tribal leaders across the country have prepared a campaign against meth use. NCAI President Joe Garcia made it a plank of his State of the Indian Nations address and issued a ''Call to Action'' to Congress and the White House. The Senate hearing was part of the response. So are efforts to increase federal funding for drug treatment and law enforcement.

But the gamble has a downside. Some of the press ignored the hard work and complicated policy questions, preferring to sensationalize the problem. NCAI people, as well as officials at St. Regis Mohawk Reservation in New York, spent months trying to interest a New York Times reporter in the story. In the end she produced a New York Post-style story making lurid charges that border reservations had become havens for drug smugglers. Outright enemies of tribal economies picked up some of the looser language and are now talking about a ''new-style Indian Mafia.''

Maybe this reaction was predictable. The mass media tends to lose its head on drug stories. It hypes the threat, preferring loose rhetoric about ''epidemics'' to balanced assessments based on statistical evidence. A reaction has even set in among press critics. Jack Shafer, of the online magazine Slate, is making a habit of refuting major cover stories on the meth threat. Far from rising, he argues, meth use has stayed relatively flat in recent years. So far Shafer hasn't unleashed his skeptical analysis on the Times series, but a more balanced look would be welcome.

It would probably conclude that whatever the hyperbole in the mainstream press, meth use is a serious and growing problem for Indian country. In fact, it might be hitting reservations harder than the rest of the country. Gary Edwards, CEO of the National Native American Law Enforcement Association, gave the SIAC hearing several reasons why. In the first place, he said, meth use is correlated with alcoholism. Meth distributors target alcohol abusers ''as a primary consumer base,'' and the rate of alcohol addiction among Indian people is high. Second, meth is one of the cheapest of illicit drugs, making it the drug of choice in poor communities. Third, tribes are vulnerable through their geography.

Edwards said that the majority of the meth distributed in tribal communities seemed to be smuggled across the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Some 41 tribes have lands within 100 miles of these borders. A majority of these tribes told Edwards' group that they had encountered drug smuggling across their borders.

Matthew Mead, U.S. attorney for Wyoming, elaborated with case studies of drug cartels targeting reservations. He told the committee that members of a Mexican operation led by Jesus Martin Sagaste-Cruz hatched a ''business plan'' to market meth on Lakota reservations after reading a Denver Post article about the huge volume of liquor sales in Whiteclay, the Nebraska border town. Members of the drug ring actually moved to the vicinity of the Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Yankton and Santee Sioux reservations to recruit meth dealers. According to Mead, they even romanced Indian women to turn them into addicts.

These operations relied on a fourth vulnerability: the splintered legal jurisdiction on reservations. This apparently technical problem is the least reported of all, but it is clearly the most important. In fact, the NCAI planned its anti-meth campaign as a way of dramatizing the fetters on reservation law enforcement. It could easily have used domestic violence or sexual predation on women and children as other examples. This problem is entirely the fault of the U.S. Supreme Court. In a string of its most racist decisions since the end of black/white segregation, the court has ruled that tribal courts and police do not have jurisdiction over non-Indians (Justice William Rehnquist's opinion in the 1978 Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe) or even over Indians who are not tribal members (Justice Anthony Kennedy in Duro v. Reina, 1990).

These widely berated rulings created an impossible situation, often prohibiting tribes from enforcing the law over a majority of the residents on their territory. Federal jurisdiction was supposed to cover the gap, but U.S. attorneys habitually gave reservation crime their lowest priority. The result has been a legal no-man's land, in which non-Indian criminals came to view the reservation as a sanctuary. The Duro case in particular completely ignored the reality of reservation life, where frequent inter-marriages have brought in substantial numbers of residents from other tribes. The case was so manifestly foolish that Congress quickly passed the ''Duro Fix'' law to restore tribal control over resident non-member Indians. But the constitutionality of this law remained in doubt until the Supreme Court backtracked in the 2004 U.S. v. Lara case.

When you add chronic underfunding of tribal law enforcement to this Supreme Court-induced anarchy, it's no wonder that reservations have a problem with lawless elements - not only in drug use but in domestic violence, attacks on women and ''quality of life'' issues in general. The wonder is that tribal officials have still managed to find ways of coping. In reporting on lurid tales of drug smuggling to the Lakota reservations, Wind River in Wyoming and elsewhere, the press often neglects to mention that the principals in these operations have been convicted and sentenced to long prison terms in part due to courageous work by tribal law enforcement. The most effective efforts against the smugglers have been joint operations combining federal, state and tribal departments.

Some tribes have come up with sovereignty-friendly solutions to the ''checkerboarding'' of jurisdiction. The International Association of Chiefs of Police strongly recommends cross-deputization agreements giving tribal police and their neighboring counterparts the power to act as agents for each other. (The chairman of the IACP Indian Country Law Enforcement Section when this report was drafted was Ed Reina, who as chief of police for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community was the respondent in Duro.) In its long article on smuggling problems at the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation in New York, the Times neglected to mention that the state had just passed a bill giving St. Regis Tribal Police the authority of the State Police in dealing with non-Indian lawbreakers.

Meth use requires a variety of counter-measures, such as anti-drug education, treatment for addicts and continued public health campaigns against alcoholism. But it also requires a change in the irrational, anarchic legal structure created by the Supreme Court. Tribes need the power to control and punish law-breaking on their territory, even if the wrongdoers are non-member Indians or non-Indians. This is not only an inherent attribute of sovereignty; it is an urgent practical matter. The single most effective attack on the meth epidemic would be a Supreme Court ruling, or congressional action, overturning the Oliphant decision.

It might have been deeply embarrassing to publicize the sordid details of the meth crisis on reservations, but a return to more rational jurisdiction for tribal law enforcement would more than justify the pain.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Fri, 14 April 2006
Source: Indian Country Today (USA)
Author: Editorial
Email: editor@indiancountry.com
Website: http://www.indiancountry.com/
Copyright: 2006 Indian Country Today

USA: Navajos Battle a Modern-Day Enemy: Meth

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. -- Isabel Whitehair had never heard of methamphetamine before her 2-year-old son reached under the sink at bath time, pulled out a pipe and put it to his mouth.

"This is Daddy's," the boy told the Navajo woman. "Dad said it's lucky medicine."

A year after the nation's largest Indian reservation launched an attack on meth _ raising penalties, increasing training for police and developing an interagency task force _ the illegal and highly addictive drug is still very much a scourge of the Navajo Nation.

No statistics are kept on meth-related crime on the reservation. But cases like Whitehair's _ and that of an 81-year-old woman arrested last month on charges of dealing meth _ make it clear the problem has not gone away.

Lynette Willie, a spokeswoman for the Navajo Department of Behavioral Health Services, calls the drug "a modern-day enemy to the Navajo people."

"I've seen what it's done already," said Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. in a recent interview. "It's awful. It's horrible."

Police say there have been signs for several years of growing meth use on the reservation: more paranoia among people stopped for traffic violations, more meth paraphernalia littering the landscape, and tragic cases of meth-related violence and neglect.

In 2004, a father was accused of leaving his 18-month-old son alone on a hilltop. The man said he forgot about the child because he was high on meth. Police found the child dead. In 2005, authorities say, a man choked to death his 36-year-old wife. Investigators said the two had been smoking meth and drinking beer.

Police say meth has become a bigger law enforcement problem on the 300,000-member reservation than even alcohol, which has been devastating to Indians. Window Rock Sgt. Wallace Billie said the number of meth-related calls the department receives has surpassed those involving alcohol.

Last year, tribal lawmakers took action, criminalizing meth for the first time. Possession or sale of meth on the Navajo Nation is now punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. (Meth possession is already a federal offense, but federal authorities venture onto the reservation only in serious cases.)

There is no word in the Navajo language for methamphetamine; the closest is one that means "eating your body." Whitehair, who no longer lives with the boy's father, has her own term: "the devil's drug."

"It takes your conscience away," she said. "It takes away your ability to know right from wrong."

Virgil Teller, a 35-year-old Fort Defiance resident, used the drug so often that his face and throat were chemically burned. Meth kept him up for days at a time, during which he sometimes went without eating.

"Once you start on it, you don't want to stop. Even though it hurts you, you still do it," said Teller, who has been clean for five months.

Law enforcement officials believe the meth is coming from Phoenix and Mexico, and say it is particularly hard to stop on the huge reservation, which covers 27,000 square miles in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah and is plagued by a shortage of police officers.

FBI agents cannot blend in on the reservation the way they do in the big city. Also, communities can be separated by hundreds of miles and there is only one road to most homes, which mean officers can usually be spotted well before they arrive.

"Most residents have fences, dogs or live out in the middle of nowhere," said Window Rock Police Officer Gilbert Yazzie. "So if you start driving in that area, people they are affiliated with will tell them there is an officer in the area."

The reservation's six jails have a total of only about 70 beds. Meth violators often are kicked out after 8 to 12 hours to make way for more serious offenders, said Samson Cowboy, director of the Navajo Division of Public Safety.

There also is no drug rehab center on the reservation; the Navajos contract instead with cities on its borders. But a 72-bed, $10.2 million treatment center has been proposed for the reservation.

Willie said the Navajo Nation needs to know what it is up against: a powerful drug that is disrupting Navajo families on the reservation, a place already beset by grinding poverty and nearly 40 percent unemployment.

"We should be protecting the sacredness of human life, and that's the bottom line," she said. "This is about human life."

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Fri, 14 April 2006
Source: The Washington Post (United States)
Author: Felicia Fonseca
Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/mediacenter/html/about_contact.html
Email: letters@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Copyright: 2006 The Associated Press

USA: Mother's Murder Retrial Starts

A Riverside County woman being retried on charges of killing her infant son with methamphetamine-tainted breast milk knew her drug use could be lethal and tried to cover up his death, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.

Amy Leanne Prien's murder trial comes seven months after a state appeals court overturned her second-degree murder conviction in 2003, ruling the trial judge had erred when he instructed the jury.

In the new trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Allison Nelson is focusing on trying to prove that Prien, of Mead Valley, knew her chronic methamphetamine use could kill her 3-month-old son, Jacob Wesley Smith, but continued using the drug regardless. The appeals court had ruled that the prosecutor would have to prove this "implied malice" to win a second-degree murder conviction.

"There's no doubt the defendant is a meth addict and that she transmitted meth to her child through the method of breast milk," prosecutor Allison Nelson told jurors at Riverside County Superior Court in Corona.

Stephen Yagman, Prien's attorney, argued in his short opening statement that prosecutors lacked the evidence to show Prien caused her son's death by breast-feeding and said that Prien's roommate might have been responsible.

"This baby was weaned a long time before this occurred," Yagman told jurors. "The only one thing that matters is causation of death, and there's no evidence that breast milk caused that baby to die."

Yagman also told jurors it was suspicious that the Riverside County coroner lost a baby bottle that was near Prien's bed when the infant died.

"You will find — to your shock — that the coroner didn't test that bottle, and lost that bottle," Yagman said.

Yagman contends that Prien's roommate at the time, Donald Fox, was dealing drugs from their home and sometimes packaged meth in baby bottle liners as a way to deliver the drug to his buyers.

During Prien's first trial, Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover Trask said he hoped the aggressive prosecution would be a deterrent methamphetamine use in the region, which he said was rampant.

Nelson told jurors in her opening statement that Prien would often smoke meth in her bedroom, then breast-feed Jacob.

Prien found the baby dead on her bed the morning of Jan. 19, 2002. The prosecutor said Prien didn't call 911 for an hour, so she had time to escort a pair of drug buyers from Corona out of her home and clean up drugs and drug paraphernalia in the home.

"You don't want police to find your drug stash," Nelson told jurors.

Judge Patrick F. Magers, who did not hear the previous case, this week ruled that the prosecutor could introduce evidence of Prien's previous arrests and drug use. Nelson told jurors of Prien's 2000 arrest on suspicion of methamphetamine possession, her positive drug test from the day of Jacob's death, and a later April 2002 positive drug test.

Nelson said that when Prien was asked by the Sheriff's Department how the meth got into the baby, first "she said she had quit breast-feeding," then "came up with a story of meth being slipped into her coffee."

Nelson told jurors she planned to call about 40 witnesses, including Prien's fellow drug users and a paternal grandmother who Nelson said had told Prien before Jacob's death, "Drugs and kids don't mix."

Fox, the first prosecution witness, said he saw Prien breast-feeding Jacob "a couple days prior to him dying" and telling her, "What are you doing, Amy? You're high on meth." Fox testified, "She told me to mind my own … business."

In a transcript of the first trial, however, Fox testified he last saw Prien nursing Jacob a month before the death.

A state appeals court in September reversed Prien's 2003 sentence of 15 years to life in prison, throwing out the murder conviction and three other felony child endangerment charges relating to Prien's handling of her three surviving children.

The court upheld her conviction of felony child endangerment relating to Jacob's death but ruled that Prien must be resentenced for that crime.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Thur, 13 April 2006
Source: Los Angeles Times (USA)
Author: Lance Pugmire, Times Staff Writer
Contact: http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-contactus,0,1439615.htmlstory
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Copyright: 2006 Los Angeles Times

USA: Amphetamines Have Bigger Impact on Male Brain

WEDNESDAY, April 12 (HealthDay News) -- Amphetamines appear to have a greater effect on male brains than female brains, a new study suggests.

"These appear to be the first clinical studies whose results may help explain why we see a greater number of men abusing amphetamines than women," study leader Dr. Gary S. Wand, professor of endocrinology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, said in a prepared statement.

The finding could also help in the development of tailored treatments for drug abuse and neurological diseases, the researchers said.

Wand's team used PET scans to observe the brains of 28 men and 15 women, ages 18 to 29. The study found evidence that, compared to women, men's brains released up to three times the amount of the neurotransmitter chemical dopamine when exposed to amphetamines.

Dopamine -- linked to the brain's pleasure system -- can increase heart rate and blood pressure and plays a critical role in the brain's control of movement. Drugs such as amphetamines and cocaine trigger the release of dopamine. Dopamine shortages are associated with memory loss, Parkinson's disease, depression and other mental illnesses.

In 2004, 6 percent of American males and 3.8 percent of females, 12 and older, illegally used amphetamines, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The findings may also explain the higher incidence of amphetamine-induced neurotoxicity in males compared to females, Wand said.

The study is expected to be published in the July 1 issue of the Journal of Biological Psychiatry.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about amphetamines.


Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Wed, 12 April 2006
Source: Forbes.com (United States)
Contact: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/contact.html
Email: readers@forbes.com
Website: http://www.forbes.com/
Copyright: 2006 Forbes.com Inc.

Australia: Why men are 'happy' on drugs

SCIENTISTS believe they may have found a reason why men are more likely to take some illegal drugs and why women are more prone to depression.

A US study has revealed that men produce more "happy chemicals" in their brains after taking amphetamines compared with women.

The neurotransmitter dopamine is three times higher in the brains of men who have taken amphetamines compared with women, according to the research. Men also reported feelings of being more confident, having more energy and being more sociable than women did.

Scientists believe the findings will help shed light on why men use more drugs, as well as giving new insights into diseases linked to dopamine levels including Parkinson's, memory loss, depression and schizophrenia.

Twenty-eight men and 15 women aged 18 to 29 were examined for the study at Johns Hopkins school of medicine in Maryland. The dopamine levels in their brains were measured while they were under the influence of amphetamines.

Scientists have suggested that the dopamine levels could be due to women's bodies being better at eliminating the drug from the brain, an action linked to levels of oestrogen, the predominantly female hormone.

Separate research published during the week adds to evidence that older women who have one or two drinks a day may be guarding themselves against declining brain functioning. The report was published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. It found that of 3298 women with an average age of 69, those who regularly consumed lower levels of alcohol scored 20 per cent higher in mental cognition tests than did those who steered clear of alcoholic drinks.


Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org/amphetablog.html
Pubdate: Sun, 9 April 2006
Source: The Sunday Age (Australia)
Author: Polly Curtis
Email: letters@theage.com.au
Website: http://www.theage.com.au/
Copyright: 2006 The Age Company Ltd

Australia: Seven arrested in major ice drug bust

Seven men have been arrested by Australian Federal Police (AFP) who have found what is believed to be the biggest illegal drug laboratory making crystal methamphetamine in Australia.

Most have already appeared in court and been refused bail.

Investigators say the lab was found on a remote property near Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales.

Officers allege the drugs, nicknamed "ice", were being made in a lab set up in several buildings, one of which had a secret underground room.

Police allege a crime syndicate had imported the ingredients needed to make the drugs.

They say members of the syndicate were taken into custody during a major operation in New South Wales and Queensland.

Police say the men were arrested at the property, at a home in Lennox Head, at Brisbane Airport and at a home in Mortdale in southern Sydney.

They have been charged with conspiracy to manufacture illegal drugs.

A Sydney businessman charged over the alleged syndicate has been refused bail after appearing briefly in court this morning.

Prosecutors allege 41-year-old George Nastoski is the ringleader of the syndicate that he was recorded on phone taps discussing details about it.

But the accused's lawyer said there was no evidence to link his client to the property.

The magistrate refused to grant bail and Nastoski will next appear in court in June.

The AFP describes the drug laboratory as probably the biggest and most sophisticated of its kind ever uncovered.

Federal agent Mike Phelan says the laboratory near Murwillumbah is still being examined and dismantled by police.

"It is one of the biggest, or if not the biggest laboratory, ever discovered in Australia," he said.

"As you can appreciate it's an extremely difficult and protracted task to dismantle the laboratory and some experts from the New South Wales police clandestine laboratory team are working as we speak to dismantle the lab and it may take a couple of days."

Mr Phelan says the AFP has used new anti-drug laws for the first time to arrest the seven men, allowing them to target the raw ingredients of drugs before they are put to use.

"They place precursors that are used in the commercial production of drugs up there in the same category as the drugs themselves," he said.

"In this particular case, the people have been charged with conspiracy to manufacture a commercial quantity of drugs.

"The maximum penalty for that is 25 years, so its put on the same plane as if it was heroin or cocaine."

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Fri, 07 April 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia -Web)
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/

Australia: Pharmacy initiative to impact on drugs availability: council

The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council says the National Pharmacy Guild's initiative to stop people stockpiling over the counter medicines will have a significant impact on the availability of illicit drugs.

The national program comprises of a computer network to track repeat buyers of pseudoephedrine, which can be used to make amphetamines.

All Australian pharmacies will be able to instantly share details of suspected drug runners between themselves and police.

The council's chief executive, Donna Bull, says amphetamines are currently the most widely used illicit drug after cannabis.

"I think taking a national approach, particularly with the transient nature of our communities and the ease of moving across borders, and so on, I think a national approach is absolutely critical if we are going to do something serious about a real problem," she said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Fri, 07 April 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia -Web)
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/

Australia: National network to track pseudoephedrine sales

A national network has been launched that allows pharmacies to swap information on people they suspect are stockpiling over-the-counter medicines to make illegal drugs.

The online program logs details about repeat purchases of pseudoephedrine, allowing pharmacists and police to track suspected drug runners.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia says it will make it harder for criminals to get the ingredients needed to make methamphetamines or speed.

Guild president Kos Sclavos says the system could also be used to monitor the sale of other dangerous drugs.

"That's what the exciting thing about this tool is, it will have other applications but for today the main thing is we want to stamp out illicit drug use and we want to stamp out the use of pharmacies as sourcing the number one scourge on our community, and young Australians who are falling prey to speed and it's the number one party drug for weekends for young Australians and that's a very sad situation," he said.

Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Thur, 06 April 2006
Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia -Web)
Email: comments@your.abc.net.au
Copyright: 2006 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Website: http://www.abc.net.au/