The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Sun, Jan. 16, 2005
MORA, Minn. - Much of the region around this Kanabec County town is a rural sanctuary of lakes, woods and cabins, but there's a growing clandestine operation that's destroying lives: methamphetamine production.

Law enforcement officers say they don't have the tools to fight meth while teachers say the drug is ruining students who are trying to balance the pressures of sports, school and work.

Financially, meth already inhales more than 10 percent of Kanabec County's annual levy of $6.7 million, the total raised for law enforcement, schools, roads and other expenses, officials said.

"If meth were to disappear from the face of the Earth, we could cut $750,000, maybe $1 million, out of our budget right now," County Coordinator Alan Peterson said.

At Mora High School, Superintendent Keith Lester looks into the faces of 10 students and wonders which two or three may have inhaled the toxic concoction brewed from cold tablets, Drano, battery acid and the phosphorous scraped from the tips of stick matches.

Authorities "have reason to believe it's 20 to 25 percent of our students" who have used meth, Lester said. "A social worker was told by a student that he could walk down the hall and point out 50 kids who are using."

At a local grocery store, managers control access to Sudafed and other cold remedies, key ingredients in meth. They have been kept behind glass since someone left dozens of emptied packages in a shopping cart outside last year.

Ask for five packages of Sudafed now and someone will call Sheriff Steve Schulz.

Schulz said that training, tracking and testifying related to meth "is 80 percent of what I do." He said he keeps a sharp eye on people who move into farmhouses, cabins and town-edge homes where the caustic vapors of a meth lab might go undetected.

"I'm angry about what I've seen happen to this county," the sheriff said. "To me, it's an atrocity that people have to be in fear of their neighbors."

Wendy Thompson, the county director of public health, said that pregnant women come through the county's Women, Infants and Children program on meth, babies are born with the drug in their systems and at least one has been born addicted.

"In 13 years as director, it's the worst drug problem I've seen," she said. "That laissez-faire attitude that kids have - 'This can't hurt me' - is dangerous when it's combined with the addictiveness of meth."

County officials said they will lobby the 2005 Legislature for longer sentences for meth offenders, more restrictions on access to materials used to make meth and more money for police, prisons, treatment and lab site reclamation.

Such a plan stalled last year in the end-of-session tangle, but Gov. Tim Pawlenty has endorsed longer sentences, funding for 10 new state narcotics agents and more effective treatment and loans to help with lab cleanup. There appears to be broad support.

"We wasted a year, but I think the meth bill will be a priority this time," said Rep. Judy Soderstrom, R-Mora.

Meth is a driving factor in a controversial proposal to build a new $15 million jail in Mora, tripling capacity to 78, Schulz said. The county now sends half of its prisoners to other counties at a daily cost of $50 each. Schulz had to hire a jail nurse because many prisoners arrive with meth burns, sores, dental disasters and bad hearts. Some need a psychiatrist. Some must be catheterized to urinate.

Dr. Peter Donner, a family physician in Mora, said that two years ago he saw one or two patients a month with physical or psychiatric problems caused by drugs. Now it's 10 or 12. Obesity and smoking still are greater threats to public health in Kanabec County, he said, "but meth is right up there."

Addiction can be treated, Jones said, but it takes more time than what's available through most treatment centers and insurance plans.

Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/state/10661017.htm