Aftermath of Meth Script

Resource Request Introduction About the Program Kathy Weiler Biography Synopsis Theme and Content Question Answer with producer Kathy Weiler The Script Watch the preview Funders Credits

Written by Kathy Weiler

TV 14 Disclaimer: The following program Aftermath of Meth explores the production, trafficking and use of methamphetamine. Viewer discretion is advised.

NARRATOR: It may be the most talked about drug in America but for all of the discussion about methamphetamine, little is heard about the worst legacies of the drug. Tonight travel to corners of the American West reeling from the aftermath of meth.

VOICE OVER: Aftermath of Meth is made possible in part by, Salt Lake County Government and the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. Additional support is provided by the Utah Association of Counties, Utah Hospitals and Health Systems Association, BMW of Murray, Utah Division of Child and Family Services, David and Susan McFarland, Founders Title Company, Utah Behavioral Healthcare Network, Jerry and Edna Taylor and the contributing members of KUED. Thank you.

NARRATOR

Methamphetamine has kicked down society's door and found it's way into virtually every corner of the American landscape. Methamphetamine is a street drug that is currently on a fast track aimed at America's country back-roads. Often called the "poor man's cocaine", meth is a very potent, highly addictive stimulant that floods the brain with dopamine giving users a long lasting sense of euphoria.

In a recent survey of 500 law enforcement agencies, 58% said that meth was their biggest drug problem. While federal legislation now restricts the sale of the key ingredient used to make meth, the demand for the drug is on the increase with steady supply manufactured in Mexico and trafficked over the border.

Once a problem confined to Western America, meth is rapidly moving across the country. With its initial rush of pleasure and energy, methamphetamine appeals to working professionals, soccer moms, blue-collar workers and university students alike. While these populations are significant, what has largely gone unreported is how methamphetamine has affected individuals living in the more isolated areas of the Intermountain West.

Often called "the devil drug" methamphetamine can rob the soul. From Native Americans, to rough necks, to innocent children, to the environment, there is much damage left in the wake of methamphetamine. The story of why methamphetamine is running rampant across the country, and in particular the rural west, begins with asking the simple question, "Why meth?"

Meth User: It's really easy to get. I mean you can get meth anywhere.

Meth User: It's just the adrenaline going through your body? your adrenaline is going at an incredible rate.

Meth User: When I was doing meth I felt like, you know, I was this better person. I could get more done. I could, you know, complete all these little tasks.

Meth User: If I didn't have it, I didn't have no self-confidence. I didn't have any self-confidence. If I wasn't high I felt completely, you know, stupid or worthless or not good enough if I didn't have meth.

Meth User: From smoking it, the next thing I knew I was snorting it, and the very last thing I knew, I was slamming it in my arm.

Brent Kelsey, Deputy Director, Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health:
People use what they can get their hands on. In fact, if you talk to people in treatment centers and you'll say, you know, what's your drug of choice? They will say, "more!"

Karen Buchi MD, University of Utah Department of Pediatrics:
Apparently, it's so prevalent and available that middle-class women can find it and get addicted to it, first with probably totally good intentions.

Lori Moriarty, Commander, Thornton, Colorado Police Department, Director, National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children
You're asking families now to work you know both the spouses are having to work two different jobs sometimes, get the kids to soccer practice, basketball practice, come home, cook dinner, make it back to work. I mean all of the things we've added into our lives, methamphetamine is a stimulant that will give you the energy to do those things for awhile.

Keith Campbell, Lieutenant, Uintah Basin Sheriff’s Office, Utah:
Methamphetamine is pretty appealing because it at least gives a person the perception that they can stay awake for hours on end.

Kelly J. Lundberg, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry
University of Utah:
A lot of women will talk about really liking the effects of having lost weight while they're on the drug. They'll talk about losing weight and they'll talk about having more energy.

John Cottrell. Director of Program Services, Harm Reduction Project, Utah:
They don't like the injection piece. They don't like what happens to them physically whether they have sores in their mouth or they've got the, you know they might be picking at sores on their face and arms, but it's worth the high.

Karen Buchi, MD, University of Utah, Department of Pediatrics:
Once you start using a drug like methamphetamine it actually changes the chemistry of your brain and you stop processing a lot of things in an appropriate way. You think you're processing in an appropriate way, but from the outside you definitely aren't.

Elizabeth F. Howell, MD, FASAM, President, American Society of Addiction Medicine:
The brain begins to act as if drugs are what the body needs to survive instead of food, water, sex, nurturing, taking care of your children, going to work—that sort of thing. All drugs that are addicting can cause a number of brain changes and they go in and sort of subvert this part of the brain, and that's where that whole notion of "hijacking the brain" reward pathway comes from. What methamphetamine does that's so dramatic is that it is one of these drugs that gives you an intense, very dramatic increase in dopamine very quickly and that is so powerful for the brain that your brain never really forgets it and you are always trying to get that feeling back.

NARRATOR

Unlike other substances of abuse, methamphetamine is psychological addicting rather than physically addicting.

Keith Campbell, Lieutenant, Uintah Basin Sheriff’s Department, Utah: Methamphetamine is a strange animal because with heroin it's physically addicting. If you stop using heroin abruptly you'll suffer physical problems; vomiting, chills, stomach cramps. There are physical characteristics associated it. With methamphetamine it's a psychologically addictive substance and nothing physically happens to your body if you stop using, but you will? I don't think you'll ever quit craving the drug.

NARRATOR

Meth users call it "chasing the high" because their brains have been rewired to think they can't function without it.

Jennifer, Recovering Meth Addict:
I knew I was hooked when I woke up in the morning and I couldn't roll out of bed without it. I worried when my stash started to get low because I knew I couldn't function without it and I literally would panic if I didn't have it and I knew it had control over me because I never felt such love toward something like that where I felt like I couldn't live without it.

Meth User: Why do I continue using? To tell you the truth, it's a high, just? it's unexplainable.

NARRATOR

In the beginning methamphetamine seems to provide a key to the fountain of youth—the answer to weight loss, fatigue and self-confidence. And then, like a scorned lover, the methamphetamine addiction takes it all away as it erodes the body and distorts the mind.

Jennifer, Recovering Meth Addict:
Paranoia was so? it controlled you just as the drug controlled you. You weren't able to walk out of your house. You started questioning your best friends, your family. You started questioning everybody that was around you. You thought everyone was against you.

Travis, Recovering Meth Addict:
Like I was driving down the street. I wouldn't look ahead of me. I would always be looking in my rear view mirror, you know watching to see if there was a cop behind me, or something. I mean paranoia, you know? just all around afraid of people being around.

Collett, Recovering Meth Addict:
The meth took such a toll on my body that it had become a dependent. I needed it and if I didn't have it, I really didn't function. I slept. I slept.

Jennifer, Recovering Meth Addict:
I had very little energy I mean to do anything, even when I was high on meth because I didn't have any muscles. It started to eat everything. My nose would bleed and I would get sores in my nose from snorting because it would eat the cartilage in my nose.

Lisa, Utah State Prison Inmate:
It takes a toll on you. I've seen these people come in that hardly have any teeth left. Their bones are sticking out and they just think they look good.

Collett, Recovering Meth Addict:
I didn't see it because you know I was losing weight so I had this perfect little figure that every girl dreams about. At least I thought it was. But I didn't notice it. I didn't notice the change. I just thought I was becoming more prettier you know because I was losing the fat that you have and you know I had a little flat stomach and I'm just like, "oh I'm just so cute, I'm just so cute" and I didn't see the change. I never did. Everybody would tell me, gosh Collett you look terrible. You know when the cops would arrest me they said, Collett you just look awful. I just thought, they're just being mean, you know, they're just being mean.

AFTERMATH OF METH
WIND RIVER RESERVATION

NARRATOR

The Wind River Reservation, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes, is one of the largest and most beautiful reservations in the country.

Wedged between Lander and Riverton Wyoming, its wide open spaces, mountain vistas, trout streams and natural simplicity are reeling from a five-year explosion of methamphetamine usage and distribution that has turned this peaceful environment into a 2.2 million acre Mecca for meth abuse.

In early 2001 the beauty and serenity of the landscape morphed into and ugly portrait of greed and destruction when Utah-based meth sellers working for a Mexican drug cartel moved to the reservation with a well thought-out plan.

Knowing that unemployment hovered around 70% and that the reservation was already an addict-rich environment from alcohol abuse, three Mexican national gang members led by Jesus Martin Sagaste Cruz arrived with instructions to rent houses, find girlfriends, introduce them to meth and establish a network of Native American drug dealers. From the gang's perspective, the reservation was ripe for drug dealing.

Doug Noseep, Chief of Police, Wind River Police Department:
The drug dealers felt there was a lack of law enforcement going after drug dealers. The tribal court system?we were only allowed to prosecute misdemeanors and there were no active federal investigations to handle the non-Indians that were dealing on the reservation.

NARRATOR

To support their new and expensive habits, meth customers became dealers and distributors themselves using free samples to recruit customers. Before long a steady growth pattern of addiction emerged.

Doug Noseep, Chief of Police, Wind River Police Department:
More people were saying that their nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters were on it. At the time that we realized that meth was here, I'd see them out in the community and I wouldn't recognize them. I had one girl just flat out say, "Doug, I'm addicted to meth. I'm doing about a gram a day." She probably lost a good hundred pounds. Her teeth were missing and she says? she told me that she couldn't stop. It was at that point that I realized we were in it for the long haul.

NARRATOR

Trafficking meth from super labs in Mexico, the Sagaste Cruz gang smuggled the drug in the drive shafts of sport utility vehicles to the Wyoming reservation.

With an exceptionally efficient organization, gang members managed a network of more than a dozen dealers who in turn funneled nearly 100 pounds of methamphetamine, with a value of over six and half million dollars onto the reservation.

It quickly became apparent to tribal leaders that they needed additional resources if they hoped to make a dent in the growing meth epidemic.

Doug Noseep, Chief of Police, Wind River Police Department:
We lacked the resources to do investigations of that magnitude, and for that reason, and for that reason only the inter-agency cooperation started. That's how the investigation started with sharing intelligence. They had the equipment and buy money—the stuff that we didn't have. They had had expertise in a drug investigation.

NARRATOR

Meth busts began.

One bust involved 19 family members, including a tribal judge, who were charged with making over 100 deals a day out of their family home.

Doug Noseep, Chief of Police, Wind River Police Department:
Once that operation ceased, the aftermath affecting the kids? a lot of people had to take care of their kids so it affected a large amount of people and had the potential to wipe out a whole entire family and it has the potential to wipe out two entire nations—that being the Arapaho and Shoshone people.

NARRATOR

In 2006 the Wind River Reservation became a sight of the largest methamphetamine bust in the history of Wyoming. On the day of the bust a helicopter hovered above as armies of federal and state agents closed in on the ground. While the success of this large-scale bust resulted in 43 arrests, the meth epidemic is far from over.

Doug Noseep Chief of Police, Wind River Police Department:
We realize we're not going to totally eliminate meth, but we'd like to reduce the amount so you know you're talking about pounds before where it's down to you know maybe just grams. Hopefully we'll reduce the amount of weight that is coming in here to where a large amount of people can't get addicted at the same time.

NARRATOR

The extent of the societal, emotional, and cultural impact on the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe tribes has yet to be fully realized.

Sonny, Recovering Meth Addict:
I lost a lot of things in life. I lost my respect from this community here. On top of that I lost my pride in being a Shoshone person. I lost valuable things; material. I basically lost myself for about almost two years.

AFTERMATH OF METH
FUELING THE OIL AND GAS BOOM

NARRATOR

The hottest energy boom is in the heart of the Rockies with its abundant oil and gas drilling operations. With a boom has come a young, rough neck work force and big paychecks to boot.

Keith Materi, President/Owner, Materi Operating Inc. Gillette, WY:
I figure a rough neck is a term that was probably made up by rough necks themselves, you know because work's not easy. You work in incredibly hot environments on your feet twelve to fourteen hours a day, and sometimes longer than that you know. It requires a person to pay attention. It's not easy work. It's also cold, very, very cold in the wintertime. It's very, very dirty. You're covered with mud a lot of the times. There's a certain amount of pride at the end of the day where a guy says you know I can do this and I do do this.

NARRATOR

With billions of dollars in oil and gas taken out of the ground, rough necks arriving on the scene with little more than high school degrees and strong backs can easily make upwards of $90,000 a year.

From the onset of the big money and oil flow there has also been a substantial increase in assault, domestic violence, theft and substance abuse.

For inmate Steve Tamlin, currently serving a five-year felony charge for drug possession, methamphetamine consumed his life on and off the rigs.

Steve Tamlin, Moffat County Jail Inmate, Craig, CO:
I could easily go through what we call a teener a day shooting it. I would also eat it. I mean I was doing it every way I could. I wanted to get high and get as high as I could, so and I got pretty high. I flipped out in the middle of the street one night and the police and ambulance had to come pick me up. I pretty much didn't know who I was, where I was. I just lost it. They got me in the hospital and that gave me a classic felony—internal possession is what it was called. That placed me in the Moffat County jail.

NARRATOR

Although drilling rigs come in many shapes and sizes, what is consistent in the business is the necessity for rough necks to work long, hard hours to insure the operation has no down time. For some workers, using methamphetamine is one way to help get them through the long, hard days.

Steve Tamlin, Moffat County Jail Inmate, Craig, CO:
It's hard to stay up twelve hours, especially if you're doing a short trip and a full trip on pipe, and the exertion is just really extreme. I would say that methamphetamine covers up what I call, you know, fatigue, you know. It fools you so you keep going and you keep going.

NARRATOR

Safety is a key ingredient to the success of any rig operation. When a worker is wired on meth, safety is generally not the first thing on his mind.

Keith Materi, President/Owner, Materi Operating Inc. Gillette, WY:
They're extremely jittery, repetitive, you know? put a wrench down and pick it back up, put a wrench down and pick it back up, while they're talking to you. They talk to you for a second, look away, talk, look away, talk, look away, itch, picking at their clothing acting like they're extremely angry and frustrated and trying to pull words from your mouth and usually an instant bad attitude. Whatever you're telling me is stupid because I know better, I know how to get this done fast if you just let me just get to work on this. There's a pattern that repeats itself, you know, that's pretty easy to spot really.

Daniel, Utah State Prison Inmate:
When you get the high and that amp, you don't really listen to people, you just want to hurry up and get things done and try to impress people and you don't actually sit there and listen to the cautions that go on. I've watched people get their chests blown out, holes blown through their chests, decapitated, lose arms, legs, lots of fingers. So ya, it's a very bad liability. You know just being sober it's very dangerous, but whenever you add meth to it, it's out of control.

Employment Drug Test, Intermountain Toxicology, Vernal, Utah

Drug Tester: You're going to take this into the bathroom. Your sample needs to be above the top of the temperature strip. When you get done just set it on the back of the toilet, leave it there, walk out and don't flush the toilet.

NARRATOR

Today oil and gas workers must pass a pre-employment drug-screening test with the understanding that random drug tests will soon follow. Unfortunately, however, drug testing is sometimes considered more of an inconvenience than a safety precaution.

Jonna May, Owner, Intermountain Toxicology:
They know how to use the system. That's basically what it is. They use the system knowing the detection period of drugs in your system—methamphetamine, 72 hours, cocaine, 72 hours, marijuana again is longer. It could be up to 28 days. So you know, ok if I do this tonight I have 72 hours and I'll be clean and I'll go apply for a job. So you go for a job, you apply, you're clean, you pass the test. You got your job and you start using. Somehow you get caught in a random program and now you have this option to rehabilitate or just quit. So what you do is you just quit and then you go to company B, you apply, fill out the application, forget to put where you're working for, so you're able to keep a job and keep your drugs.

AFTERMATH OF METH
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

NARRATOR

Methamphetamine manufacturing is an environmental nightmare because it can be made almost anywhere.

The serenity and wide-open space of the American West has, in some cases, become the kitchen of choice for many meth cooks.

Remote campsites have become depositories of empty Sudafed packets, matchbooks, iodine bottles, acetone containers and burning coffee filters in the fire pit.

From the mountain forests to cars, trailers, storage lockers, bathrooms, garages, hotel rooms, kids rooms and kitchens, the environmental damage from methamphetamine is far-reaching.
For each pound of meth produced, five to ten pounds of toxic waste ends up in the county landfills, farmlands, national forests, and local water systems.

Brian Reid, MS, LEHS, Licensed Environmental Health Scientist, Salt Lake Valley Health Department:
The environmental impact of clandestine labs can vary with different sizes. If we find a lab site, say out here, a lot of times they won't dump their stuff into a dumpster. They'll just leave it scattered all over. There could be left over residue, left over chemicals. To get rid of their waste, they're not going to throw it into a dumpster or anything like that. They'll dispose of it anyway they can; either out in the woods or possibly in the creek.

Kevin Okleberry, MS, LEHS, Environmental Health Compliance Officer, Salt Lake County Environmental Health:
In some cases we found that they've dumped it in the back yard in the garden. Other cases they might have dumped it down the storm-drain where it goes untreated into the nearest waterway. And also they will throw their waste, often into the local garbage or in somebody's dumpster.

Brian Reid: MS, LEHS, Licensed Environmental Health Scientist, Salt Lake Valley Health Department:
There was a methamphetamine lab that was found. One of the persons involved rolled over on his buddies, so his buddies kind of knew the police were coming so they started to dump copious amounts of chemicals in the backyard on the fence and over on the hillside where many people walk their animals.

Marjean Searcy, Project Coordinator, SLC-COPS-METH Initiative, Utah:
The containers that the chemicals came in will be dumped. We have what we call a "death bag" and what that is is the phosphine gas, the meth lab? it's cooking causes phosphine gas and that phosphine gas they usually will put it into a kitty litter bag or a garbage bag and vent it into something to keep it. Gas cans are often used for that. Usually what we do is find them either in a dumpster in a parking lot or we'll see them dumped along the side of the road or in a remote area. And when we have that it concerns us a lot because you'll have kids walking home from school. As a young child, thirteen or eight, you know bags like that with duct tape and a hose sticking out of it—that's pretty interesting. One of the concerns is, if you breathe that in, it actually causes damage to your lungs, if not death.

NARRATOR

Not long ago, home meth labs were very common. At one time it was estimated that on average one lab existed within every ten-block radius.

(Clandestine Meth Lab)

Detective, Police Department, Salt Lake City, Utah: Right here is a typical meth lab. This is a depiction of what they call the "red pee method." As you can see all of the different chemicals that are involved with it to include combustible gases, Coleman fuel, acetone, gas-line antifreeze, Red-devil lye, sodium hydroxide. These chemicals are not made, obviously, for human consumption and with the manufacturing of methamphetamine you combine all of these chemicals together obviously for the body to ingest it. Basically what that does is it causes the meth to basically eat the body from the inside out. Because all of these chemicals here are combustible gases; acetones, iodine, toxic chemicals that in and of themselves. If you ingest them into the body can be very, very toxic causing a lot of, if not, lethal problems right off the bat—long-term problems, health problems. Because of the chemicals used and the toxicity of the precursors used, the mixture of those makes it very combustible. And when you're manufacturing methamphetamine, you're using flammable gases. Obviously any sort of electricity, hence whether it be a pilot light, whether it be a lighter, static electricity for the matter, the gases will build up and become very combustible in a home. And then the contamination with just the chemicals in and of themselves, contaminate homes very, very easily.

NARRATOR

Today the number of meth labs is down, but the toxic waste left over from manufacturing is still active, long after the cooks have moved on, to new places and spaces. The leftover chemicals cannot be removed by normal cleaning.

TRANSITION

Newly married, Paul and Cynthia Halliday thought they had found the perfect home in Orem, one of the most conservative and family-friendly cities in Utah County where they could live comfortably and raise a family.

Paul Halliday, Buyer of meth contaminated house:
I fell in love with it from the simple fact that it reminded me of my grandmother's house. So I had a good feeling about it and it was neglected. I thought we could put a little T.L.C. and work together and make a nice little home and raise a little family, and now it's a nightmare.

Cynthia Halliday, Buyer of meth contaminated house:
I actually started getting sick myself and I told Paul, I'm having difficulty breathing and I thought it was just the dust, the house. We never really thought it would be anything bad. Paul started having diarrhea and I started having diarrhea and again we thought it was just stress or also maybe the flu. I started having skin rashes and I was concerned about it.

Paul Halliday:
Our neighbors came over? one of our neighbors came over and referred to the history of the home stating that there was a lot of traffic and he suspected that there was drug use taking place in the home and perhaps even being sold or manufactured. He had no proof but he encouraged us to get the house tested and so what do you do when you're told that? We had no idea where to start so I think we got on the internet and it said to contact your Board of Health and it came up positive. Once you're told that your house is positive and we went to the hotel and we thought, oh everything that? we're contaminated, and we just felt it was something we can't wash off of us.

Cynthia Halliday:
We didn't want to keep anything in the house. We were so scared that we decided you know all those things are material things and eventually we can get it back again. We just don't want to even have those things back to us that are in the house. But when you start thinking about the sentimental things, that's when it hits you. You realize that you lost a lot.

Paul Halliday:
When we got married my mom, she actually? my mom was actually diagnosed with cancer and so she actually made a afghan for us for our wedding. She passed away this June so that was the last thing she made for us.

Cynthia Halliday:
It's gone. It was totally destroyed.

NARRATOR

Contamination from methamphetamine manufacturing happens when residue and gas from the chemicals used in the process seep through the carpets, drapery and sheet-rock or are carried through the house in air currents.

Having spent most of his career in law enforcement, Kyle Adams now works as a Decontamination Specialist. Kyle knows where to look and how to identify the tell tale signs of meth.

Kyle R. Adams, Environmental Decontamination Specialist, Low Cost Clean Up and Restoration:
Here's the stuff up here? that's exactly what hydrochloric acid? the residue of hydrochloric acid and it's very, very consistent with the way that it looks and feels. The other part that you need to watch for, are the runs. Runs are this yellow substance down the wall? but ya, it's called hydrogen iodide gas that is produced in the cooking process of the meth. It's carried through the building. It's lighter than air so it rises to the top of the building and then it's carried through the building, usually around the corners is where air follow and so the first place it showed up was up in the corners, and it's an acid so it will condense and then it will eat it's way into the sheet rock and frame and then when it gets as far as it goes, it will turn around and go back out. I believe that contamination in the house was probably transferred contamination. In other words, it's on their clothes, on their shoes and they tracked it into the house and it's off-gased into the house. They track it into the carpet, and the off gas, and it rolls and that's where it might go up there.

One thing that you as a homeowner should be aware of, and your neighbors will know? they will know the activity that has gone on in the home, they'll know whether or not if that house was a party house. If you have a party house, you can contaminate a home with years of meth just as high as if they were cooking in there with one party. You have 20 people in there using meth, smoking meth in a night for three or four hours, you've got a contaminated home.

Kyle R. Adams, Environmental Decontamination Specialist, Low Cost Clean Up and Restoration:
I just finished the lab in Mona. I finished a bunch of contaminated properties in Logan. I've got one I'm just starting in Garland. I'm going down this weekend to do one in Tocquerville. Uh they're just all over anywhere you can imagine. They're on the east side of valley here in the valley where there are rich, rich, rich, nice, well-furnished, beautiful homes. I've done them up there. I've done them right in the middle of Chesterfield and White City, and you know on the West side over here in Magna. It doesn't matter.

Methamphetamine is a drug that you have to know and understand its properties in order to stay away from it. It's a drug that will make you feel good. It will make you feel fantastic, from what I understand. What they don't tell you is what it does to you down the road that makes you feel terrible or takes your life. It just sucks the life out of you and you get caught up in that good feeling and you're caught in the trap. You've got to be educated as to what this drug will do to you and flat-out, it will kill you. It will kill you!

AFTERMATH OF METH
ENDANGERED CHILDREN

NARRATOR

The segment of society that falls below the radar when methamphetamine cases are reported is the children, endangered by the addictions of their parents.

These children, living in environments where adults are using or manufacturing drugs number in the hundred of thousands, often living in filthy, toxic, drug-infested environments, these children sleep and eat off the surfaces contaminated by meth’s reside.

Carol Cisco, Public Information Officer, Utah State Department of Health Services:
Usually when we go into the homes they're a big mess and there's nothing of value left because they've sold everything they own either to make meth or buy meth. If it's a meth home making drugs the meth making equipment will be strung all over the house. If there's food it's usually rotten, but very often there is no food. The kids are? you know a lot of times they don't have any clothes, or if they do they're practically rags and things that no longer fit them. They may not have shoes.

Karen Buchi, MD. Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah:
The refrigerator could also be the repository where they keep the methamphetamine liquid before it is crystallized and that methamphetamine liquid sits there, some of the gases elude off of it and go into the chicken that's right next to the methamphetamine and they tested the chicken and found the chicken positive for methamphetamine.

NARRATOR

In a world defined by meth, children are invisible because their parents are caught up with the need for the drug rather than the necessities of parenting.

Lori Moriarty, Commander, Thornton, Colorado Police Department, Director, National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children
The life of a child living in a home where their parents are manufacturing or using methamphetamine, or any substance for that matter (cocaine or heroin), and if you have an addictive behavior occurring within the home you're going to have neglect. You're going to have maltreatment, you're going to have? you know a lot of times the kids aren't fed, they don't make it to the doctor. The subculture in and of itself is sometimes 10 or 15 people live at the same house because everyone else has lost their job. There have been a lot of situations where, you know, the children are parentified by the age of four or five to where they're actually the four year old sibling taking care of the two year old sibling just because there is no nurturing and no positive experiences that are taking place in the home because truly the addiction has taken over and it has left a lot of emptiness.

NARRATOR

Not only are law enforcement and environmental agencies in the West stressed by meth, but the impact on families has put The Division of Child and Family Services on a red alert.

Lori Moriarty, Commander, Thornton, Colorado Police Department, Director, National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children
I was doing an interview with a four year old and, you know. I was asking if he could count, and he's like, ya I can count to a hundred and when he gets to seven he can't count past that. And almost in his embarrassment, like that he felt that he should have been able to count to a hundred, he tells me he can draw pictures. And so we find him paper and give it to him, and you know within a few minutes he's literally drawing a meth lab and my thought was, wow he can't count to seven but he can draw an entire meth lab. I mean that tells you the environment that he's living in and what his parents are modeling as far as behavior that he's now going to pick up on. He actually told me, "I know why you're here. You're here because my mom makes oil."

Carol Sisco, Public Information Officer, Utah State Department of Health Services:
The police asked us to go down to Harriman on a meth bust. A nine-month old baby sleeping in his crib, um there's a meth beaker at the other end and when you make meth you have to drip some of the ingredients from one beaker to another. I guess they thought the crib provided great height to do that and so stuff is dripping six inches from the baby in his crib.

NARRATOR

The many innocent children living under the care of adults who use and/or manufacture meth are often subject to permanent health damage and respiratory distress that comes from breathing meth's toxic fumes. These children, living along side guns and pornography, are often victims of physical and sexual abuse.

Lori Moriarty, Commander, Thornton, Colorado Police Department, Director, National Alliance for Drug Endangered Children
Methamphetamine, as it's destroying the brain cells it's stopping information from the transmission of information in our brain, so a lot of times if an addict starts doing something like looking for something they might look for two, three or four hours? crossword puzzles forever. The same thing occurs if they start an abusive pattern like maybe hitting a child. Their brain doesn't tell them to stop. So you could hit a child once, twice, three, and the next thing you know they just keep hitting the child so it can be a very abusive environment. So there's a lot that goes with the methamphetamine addiction and the power of the addiction on the user, that creates an additional risk to the child.

Mother and baby living at the Homeless Shelter
This? this is my room. I'm at the Road Home Shelter and this is where me and my son stay. I contribute a lot of it to my drug use because I thought that drugs were more important than my kids and that was wrong on my part and I regret that. My kids are my life.

Interviewer
You've used methamphetamine in front of your daughter? Tell me about that.

Mother, Temporary Resident, Road Home Homeless Shelter, Utah:
Well I told her that her dad got me hooked on the meth and I didn't want to. I never took drugs, any drugs before in my life and um I did in front of her. I wasn't going to hide if from her. I can't hide something when it's just me and her and I weighed like over 300 pounds and I told her I needed to have the surgery done or I can do this. So she'd rather me do that, rather me do the meth than have the surgery because she didn't want me to die on the table. So that's why I got hooked on the meth and everything. But I was up and honest with her and a lot of the meth was my fault why my kids are like they are, split up.

NARRATOR

The aftermath of meth is a very serious and real concern for young children and teenagers alike. What happens behind the scenes is often a ripple effect because eventually methamphetamine will destroy everything.

Father: Recovering Meth addict:
I started off with a having the American dream; have my own family, a house with a white picket fence. I was a coach for Little League making $50-60,000 a year. It's a perfect life.

Daughter: 17 Years Old
My parents had everything they wanted basically. We all had what we wanted, like I had my pink little room. My brother had his little bedroom.

Father: Recovering Meth addict
A friend introduced me to meth and you know just after the first line my life just totally turned upside down. Uh within a matter of years I lost my perfect family. I lost my house. I lost everything.

Mother: Meth User
To me it's an every day? if I didn't have it every day I couldn't get up out of bed kind of deal, so if I didn't have it I was basically out dead to the world.

Daughter: 17 years old:
I've seen people use in front of me. My mom said nothing and it's just like, I know what every drug is used for. I know how they use it. I know what they use it for, how they? everything.

Father: Recovering meth addict
It turned into a disaster where meth became my world and everything I ever wanted was no good anymore. I just threw it all away for the drugs.

Mother: Meth user
Um my kids? I put my kids through a lot, especially my little girl. She took over like mother hen, you know. She basically raised my little one.

Father: Recovering meth user
I lost, you know, sight of myself and who I was, and I ended up in prison. I ended up doing three years and I wasn't there for my kids in the most important time in their lives when they were growing up.

Daughter: 17 years old
I basically took over as a parent. I raised my brother. That's how it is. I raised him. I mean I worked? I did everything. I paid the bills. That's why I quit going to school because I looked at it like where if my mom's not going to do it, where are we going to live? So I took over. I paid the bills. I paid? I did everything.

Mother: Meth user
I was lacking not doing laundry, dishes, um taking you know the little one here to go there or picking him up or she had to step in and start, you know she started doing all of that stuff when they wanted me as a mom, but I was never really around. I was there but not really there for them, you could say, as a mom.

Daughter: 17 year old
To the point where it got? struggled where we didn't have clothes. We didn't have the things we wanted, so me and my little brother went and we did shoplift. We shoplifted for quite a while and I mean it wasn't the best thing that I thought we could do, and it wasn't good for my little brother, it wasn't, but we had to do what, I guess what we had to do. We had nothing. I mean, my mom she didn't even honestly, she didn't even care. It's like she'd come home, do whatever she had to do and leave. And that's how I raised my little brother my whole life. I raised him.

Mother: Meth user
Why do I keep doing it? Like I said it's uncontrollable. It's just a high.

Daughter: 17 years old
We begged her to stop, you know we? I bought her this $150 necklace and earrings and she went and sold it for drugs and I asked her to stop, you know. And she told us a lot of times she was off drugs but I know when people are using. I've been around too many people. I know when they're on drugs and I know when they're not. I know when they're coming down. I know everything. And she'd always lie to us and tell us, "Oh you know I'm doing good, I'm doing good" you know, and she wasn't. We got away for a while. She was clean for about a month.

Mother: Meth user
It's just a high. I mean I've tried almost every drug there is and nothing compares to what I feel like when I smoke meth. It's unexplainable. I don't know.

Daughter: 17 year old
It's horrible, and sometimes, you know I thought about doing it, but I couldn't. Because I thought about, what if I do, where's my little brother going to go. And there were times I thought, just call the State and have us gone, but I couldn't.

Father: Recovering meth addict
It has been a struggle to be able to get back on my feet now and I'm reduced to, you know, living wherever I can—living in a one-bedroom uh part of a house and trying to struggle with me and my kids not knowing what I'm going to do from one day to the next just to make sure we live.

Mother: Meth user
Crystallizes back and here's the addiction right here. (smokes/inhales). Right there is the addiction. It's? I don't know, it's uncontrollable. It really is.

Father: Recovering meth addict
It would be so much easier for me to just fall back into the drugs and not care—give it all up, but I have to, you know, maintain myself because it's not just me that I'm looking after anymore. It's my kids and my family, you know. I've got to worry about not only about myself, but just all the little things. It's just hard. You have to live every day one day at a time and hope that it's going to be o.k.

AFTERMATH OF METH
HIDDEN COSTS OF THE EPIDEMIC

NARRATOR

With methamphetamine abuse soaring, so too are the associated costs that are ultimately passed on to the taxpayers. A study by the National Association of Counties found the toll on local communities from meth abuse, particularly in the rural communities to be immense. Skyrocketing costs cut across all segments of society from child-welfare, to crime, lab clean-up, substance abuse treatment, criminal justice, uninsured hospital visits, and prisoner's health care. All of these combined to cost the government billions of dollars each year.

Richard Anderson, (Retired) Director, Utah Department of Human Services, Child and Family Services:
There are many costs associated with methamphetamine use just by having more children come into foster care. Foster care is expensive, providing services to parents to try and reunify the children--the cost of law-enforcement responses, emergency rooms, the treatment to children that are born addicted. The fact that they're not using prenatal care so you have children who are being born with a lot of problems that have to be addressed. Across the board, the thefts that are going on to support the habits, more in jail because that's what happens—a drug bust happens and the parents go off to jail. The children end up with us. Trying to find some place for them to stay while their parents are in jail. I think it cuts across so many pieces of society. It's interesting. Child-welfare work is one where you say to people often, it's as though you can assume that that person would abuse their child, this person would use drugs because of how they look and the issue is not that simple. It's cutting across all socioeconomic levels.

Patrick J. Fleming, MPA, LSAC, Director, Salt Lake County Department of Substance Abuse
To take a child and remove them from their family—the trauma that child faces is incredible. Some people can say, well, ya but the place they room, that's terrible too. That's very true, but a child loves his parents, especially his mother and all of a sudden you remove that child from that environment, maybe not a good environment, but you remove them. So that's the social cost of it. You talk about the physical cost to the taxpayer. On the other side of that to put every one of those kids in the child welfare system in Utah costs the taxpayers in this state $32,000 a year. Now we know that most of the women have an average of two kids so 2x32 is $64,000 a year to take those two kids away from her. Then if we lock her up for a year it's going to cost us between $30,000 to $35,000 depending if she has any health-care issues. So what you're looking at, is you're looking at almost $100,000 to the taxpayer for this drug and a lot of it is being driven by the child welfare system.

NARRATOR

The challenges facing the rural areas are compounding because while the need is growing the dollars can only be stretched so far.

Elizabeth F. Howell, MD, FASAM, President, American Society of Addiction Medicine:
There are a lot fewer resources in the rural areas. And we don't have a lot of resources for addiction treatment period. But in the rural areas that's even magnified because there are going to be fewer dollars; fewer people to provide services, fewer physicians who are aware of addiction treatment, fewer social workers, counselors, etc. You know you can't expect one person or a few people to provide comprehensive treatment for a whole large area of rural Utah or whatever state you're in.

NARRATOR

In rural Utah, there are more meth-related emergency room visits than from any other drug.

Kurt King, MD, Medical Director, Castleview Hospital Emergency Room, Price, Utah:
The number of visits we have that are meth-related is definitely going up. We have had patients, young patients, twenty year-old patients have their heart attacks and when you do their tox screen they have cocaine or methamphetamine in their system. I've been in the E.R. now nine years and I never saw any cases like that until the last two to three years.

NARRATOR

Rarely do these patients have health insurance.

Kurt King MD, Medical Director, Castleview Hospital Emergency Room, Price, Utah:
One of the problems with methamphetamine, like alcohol, it just affects people's lives. It makes it difficult for them to be affective parents. It makes it difficult for them to hold a job, and it makes it difficult for them to make decisions that other people would make easily. For example, a lot of these patients would qualify for Medicaid if they would be focused enough or motivated enough to be able to go down and correctly fill out the paperwork and get that help that's available. They qualify, but they still don't have it because they haven't been able to take those steps. A large percentage of the patients with this problem, methamphetamine, are not insured. We still provide care, but it is uncompensated care. So what happens is the cost of that care gets shifted onto patients that do have health insurance.

NARRATOR

As crime goes up to pay for methamphetamine addiction, so too does the cost to house the inmates.

Jack Ford, Director of Public Affairs, Department of Corrections, Utah
The growth in the female population has outgrown our facilities. We are renting beds from a number of county jails. We are right now looking at some additional facilities. We can't turn someone away. We can't say, sorry we're full. So it's a scramble to do what we can.

PRISON DENTAL CLINIC

NARRATOR

Along with the current housing challenges, medical costs are also soaring, especially dental care. At the present time it costs taxpayers $8.00 per day per inmate to provide health and dental care. “Meth-mouth” is a term that describes a serious dental problem common among methamphetamine users. It occurs for two reasons; the side effects of the drug, and the lifestyle of the user.

Brandon Schvaneveldt, DDS,
Meth users in particular tend to have this characteristic wear pattern. For some each of the meth users that I've seen tend to exhibit this same pattern along the gum line especially. It seems to attack this area. It's very characteristic for meth. After it gets into these areas along the gum line it tends to leach out those minerals and the teeth just kind of disintegrate. They fall apart. You can see that especially in these back areas. Although some inmates may neglect their teeth, it seems that the meth treats all inmates the same. It just really gets in and ravages the teeth. Eventually what happens is, you don't see anything here at all except for a little pitted out remnant of what use to be his tooth.

NARRATOR

The ingredients used to manufacture meth are toxic chemicals never meant for human consumption. Combined, these chemicals cause enormous health and dental problems to meth users. In time, meth users, or "tweekers" as they are called, pay a huge price for the initial rush of pleasure they first experienced and continue to chase.

AFTERMATH OF METH
THE DARK SIDE
NARRATOR

When methamphetamine users become addicts the rush of pleasure on the way up eventually comes crashing down. Addicts call it "hitting bottom."

Interim Treatment Meeting: Male User:
You know I spent my whole life doing drugs, and you know what? All of the kids I went to school with, they got the big house on the hill. You know what I got? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing but a lifetime full of misery, you know. And my relationships? if I met a girl I really, really loved you know and methadone and meth combination turned me into a monster. I've never hit a girl in my life, you know. I choked her you know and stuff like that. I'm ashamed of that you know.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Female User:
I become a different person when I'm on meth. Like I didn't think I did that much, but then like when I think about how I was..my whole attitude was different.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Male User:
Ya I was an I.V. user too. I have hepatitis C.

Interim Group: Female User:
I just contracted that last month. Like even my boyfriend now, we'll still use meth once a twice a month or so. But, the last time we did it he was like, "I can't do this anymore. I hate you when you're on meth. You're a totally different person. You know you act different, you talk different."

Interim Treatment Meeting:
Oh it turns me into a demon.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Female User:
Everything! You know I can't stand to be with when you're on it." I didn't think I changed that much but he could see some pretty dramatic changes.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Male User:
I get so hyper-vigilant I'm just like, I mean I'll be looking under the bed "what are you doing under there?" I'll run across to the other side, you know, I mean, it's crazy. Why would you want to? is that fun? It's not fun.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Female User:
I look back on it and like, that wasn't fun at all. I don't know why I think I was having fun.

Interim Treatment Meeting: Group: Male User:
I'm forty years old and I go to jail you know and I don't see many forty year olds in there anymore. There's a few, but most of them are kids and most of them are a mess and they say, "Oh I can't wait to get out and do meth." And I'm just like, "Look at me! Do you want to end up like me?” You know I talk to the youngsters man and I say, "You know what?" I say, "You keep going where you're going you're going to have to commit to on your way to prison just like me, 40 years old, you're not going to have nothing."

Interim Treatment Meeting: Female User:
I mean I'm only twenty-four but like when I came here at eighteen or nineteen I'm like, "I guarantee if you keep on doing it, you're going to end up just like me. You're going to hit rock?everything, everything you know, and you're going to wake up one day and wonder what the hell happened!"

AFTERMATH OF METH
THE EPILOGUE OF METH
NARRATOR

There is a growing sense of urgency to control this multimillion dollar epidemic whose principle effect is to divide, destroy and consume it's users. It is a drug that knows no boundary, leaving addicts in a descending spiral of distorted reality, indifferent to life's consequences.

Keith Campbell, Lieutenant, Uintah County Sheriff’s Office, Utah
There's nothing I hate worse than methamphetamine because of what it does. You can take the most honest individual, the most trusted individual you ever knew in your life? it could be the kid you grew up next door to that was the best friend you ever had, and if his life is infected with methamphetamine that person will steal, that person will cheat, that person will sell dope to a six-year old kid. That person will do every unmentionable thing that you would have thought they were not capable of and do it repetitively.

Collett, Recovering Meth Addict:
And when you get to that confused zombie stage you just take another hit and that other hit just makes you feel better. You know when you're at your lowest when you feel like a piece of crap and you feel guilty for using and? you just, you just take another hit because it gets rid of that guilt. It buries that guilt a little bit deeper. And you think, I ain't such a bad person. Take another hit. I mean it's an unexplainable drug that justifies itself.

Keith Campbell, Lieutenant, Uintah County Sheriff’s Office, Utah:
I can deal with somebody that smokes weed. I can deal with somebody that's an alcoholic. I can deal with somebody that's using prescription drugs. There are programs available with relatively high success rates. But far and above, methamphetamine is the worst of the worst. It's not even a close call. Methamphetamine has been involved in, or directly responsible for damn near every tragic thing that I've worked in my career.

END

Aftermath of Meth is made possible in part by, Salt Lake County Government and the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. Additional support is provided by the Utah Association of Counties, Utah Hospitals and Health Systems Association, BMW of Murray, Utah Division of Child and Family Services, David and Susan McFarland, Founders Title Company, Utah Behavioral Healthcare Network, Jerry and Edna Taylor and the contributing members of KUED. Thank you.