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“IT’S EASIER TO GET DRUGS THAN IT IS TO GET A JOB. YOU CAN FLIP A COIN AND FIND A TWEAKER BEFORE IT EVEN HITS THE GROUND.” - ETHAN SMITH
woman’s recovery center in Kalispell. The Montana Meth Project formed to combat the epidemic, disseminating dra- matic and graphic anti-drug ads on high- way billboards, radio, television and in newspapers.
The e orts worked. According to the Montana Department of Justice, teen meth use dropped 44.6 percent between 2005 and 2007 and meth-related crime dropped 62 percent from 2004 to 2007. The number of workers who tested pos- itive for meth fell 72 percent during the same time period. These declines accel- erated a downward trend in meth use that had been evident since 1999, according to the Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
But today, it appears the progress has slowed, as law enforcement agen- cies report seeing an uptick in the drug’s use not seen since the early 2000s. The Northwest Montana Drug Task Force has con scated more methamphetamine in the rst six months of 2016 than it did during all of 2015, almost all of it coming from outside the country.
“It’s exploded,” said Mark Mulcahy, commander of the drug task force, which is based in Kalispell. “We used to be excited to get an eight-ball of meth but now we’re taking it in by the pound.”
Smith says getting the drug has never been easier.
“It’s easier to get drugs than it is to get a job,” he said. “You can ip a coin and nd a tweaker before it even hits the ground.”
Achemist in Germany rst synthe- sized amphetamine in 1887, and three decades later a more potent version called methamphetamine was made in Japan. The drug, which can be taken orally, smoked, snorted or injected, increases the amount of dopa- mine produced in the brain, leading to an intense euphoria. However, the high is short-lived and users often take mul- tiple doses to keep it going. Long-term methamphetamine use can result in confusion, anxiety, mood swings, para- noia, hallucinations and violent behavior. Abuse of the drug can also cause extreme weight loss and dental problems, among other health issues.
During World War II, Japan’s Kami- kaze pilots were reportedly given high doses of amphetamine before suicide missions, while other soldiers also used the drug to stay alert. In the 1950s, the drug was marketed in a tablet form for weight control. The federal government outlawed the drug with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.
Law enforcement and health o cials say speci c drugs rise and fall in popular- ity over time. In the 1980s, cocaine was common, in the 1990s and early 2000s it was methamphetamine, and by the late- 2000s prescription pills were the pri- mary concern. Methamphetamine’s ini- tial surge came with the establishment of homegrown meth labs. Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison
remembers one year in the late-1990s when more than 40 meth lab cases came before his court.
In response to the scourge, law enforcement nationwide cracked down on meth labs, while state and federal leg- islators addressed the problem through laws. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 regulated the sale of products like ephedrine, pseudoephed- rine and phenylpropanolamine. The fed- eral legislation set limits on the quanti- ties of regulated chemicals that people could buy and required stores to keep logbooks of the purchasers.
As meth became harder to produce, opioid abuse, including both prescrip- tion pills and heroin, began to rise across the country. Since 1999, the number of opioid overdose deaths has skyrock- eted, with nearly a half-million people dying between 2000 and 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Among those addicted to pills was
of school. Over the next few years, Smith would bounce from job to job and home to home before deciding to join the U.S. Army in 2009. Soon after enlisting, though, he injured his back. The Army prescribed him painkillers and he soon started abusing them. Smith was honor- ably discharged in 2013 and soon after returned to the Flathead Valley.
No longer in the military, Smith couldn’t get the painkillers he had become addicted to and started to use heroin instead. But at that time, the local heroin supply was drying up, at least tem- porarily. One day, Smith’s dealer told him that he couldn’t get any heroin but he did have methamphetamine.
“I said, ‘No way, I’ve been down that road before,’” Smith recalled.
But Smith’s withdrawals were intense – “I started to feel like a tin can being crushed” – and three hours later he called the dealer back. He purchased some methamphetamine and smoked it out of a light bulb. A week later, he injected it for the rst time. After putting the needle down, Smith began to hallucinate and he watched the bathroom mirror melt into the drain below.
“I thought I was going to die. I thought my heart was about to explode,” he said. “But I used again the next day... and after that I was using every single day.”
To supply his habit, Smith started dealing again and even stealing from family members to get money to pay for his addiction.
Sthan Smith.
mith grew up in the Flathead Valley and as a teenager experi- mented with drugs, mostly mar- ijuana and cocaine. Before high
school, he was dealing drugs. The one drug Smith would not do again was methamphetamine.
Smith’s mother died when he was 17. Around the same time, he dropped out
E
“I did anything to get my hands on it,” e said. “I’d steal anything and pawn it.”
PRIMARY DRUG USE IN 2014 VS. 2016
11.8%
17.5%
59%
ALCOHOL
SOURCE: FLATHEAD VALLEY CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY CENTER
2014
3.3% OTHER
METHAMPHETAMINE
15.8% 60.6% 2016
METHAMPHETAMINE
MARIJUANA
10.1% HEROIN/ OPIATES
12.3% 7.6% MARIJUANA
HEROIN/ OPIATES
ALCOHOL
2%
OTHER
hSmith was apparently one of many Montanans discovering, or redis- covering, meth. According to Bryan Lockerby, an administra- tor for the Montana Department of Jus- tice’s Division of Criminal Investigation, his agency dealt with 68 cases involving methamphetamine in 2010, but by 2012 it had spiked to 143 cases statewide. In 2015, the division handled 232 meth-re- lated cases. Lockerby said about 80 per- cent of all drug cases his o ce prosecutes now involve methamphetamine use.
Unlike the early 2000s, when much of methamphetamine was homegrown, Lockerby said most of what is coming into the state today is produced in Mex- ico. Flathead County is one of ve feder- ally designated High Intensity Drug Traf- cking Areas in Montana, which allows state and local o cials to access federal funding allocated for combating drug crimes. Some of that money goes to the Northwest Montana Drug Task Force.
The task force is based out of the Flat- head County Sheri ’s O ce and covers six counties, including Flathead, Lincoln,
AUGUST 3, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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