Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge

[rodeodance]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/national/10meth.html?th

Associated Press

Too Late for Katie, Town Tackles a Drug's Scourge
By JODI WILGOREN

Published: February 10, 2005

CROTHERSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 9 - John Neace forces himself to pass by the run-down apartment buildings every day. Inside, the police say, Mr. Neace's 10-year-old daughter stumbled on someone with methamphetamine last month. Her drowned body was found five days later at a nearby creek, small hands tied tightly behind her back.

As dime and dollar donations poured in from around the corner and around the country for the little girl's burial, Mr. Neace, whose $14.75-an-hour factory job barely covers the $400 monthly rent on his trailer, had a thought: What if he could buy the hated buildings, bulldoze them and build a playground in their place?......



Katie's Jan. 25 disappearance, and the Feb. 2 arrest of an unemployed high school dropout, have shaken this small town out of silence about the scourge of methamphetamine.

Like many similar communities across the nation's midsection, Crothersville, 40 miles north of Louisville and with a population of 1,541, has seen methamphetamine steadily seep into its streets.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Meth-

I've been told it changes one's personality, and is really bad bad stuff.

The way to fight drugs is to give drug users hope-and treatment- and to take away the huge profits that can be made by making and selling meth. The only way I see to do this is to treat drug abuse as the medical problem it is.

[ixion]

2. it's not the drug, it's the person

Blaming drugs is simply an excuse, a scapegoat to blame. The true problem lies in the social constructs, not the drugs.

Meth users are generally unpleasant, IMO, to be sure. But they would be unpleasant without it as well. They are broken humans. The drugs are simply a symptom.

Blaming a symptom does nothing to solve the problem, IMO.

[rodeodance]

3. still, people like this 10 year old get caught in the middle

[bowens43]

4. I disagree.

I have know several meth addicts who were very sweet, kind and reasonable people before their addiction. They became evil, angry, , paranoid, hate filled criminals because of the drug. To deny the affects of this drug is silly. This isn't pot we're talking about. This is a drug that causes profound physical changes to the brain and the body.

[ixion]

7. I agree that the drug causes profound changes

however, my argument is that there is a tendancy already prevalent in the individual that is fulfilled, or amplified, by the drug of choice.

I realize that Meth isn't pot. But I will maintain my claim that it's the drug is a symptom, or perhaps a catalyist, but that it is not in and of itself the issue. Millions of people have used meth and without kidnapping innocent people, without destroying their lives, and without becoming addicted. This is the foundation for my premise.

[cap]

5. these people voted against funding mental health programs

that would have treated people so that they would not be using meth.

[applegrove]

6. I hear it is one drug that hits the countryside & small town too.

I hear it is one drug that hits the countryside & small town too. Hopefully the Red States will learn the importance of the DEA and not cut that program too.

[Demeter]

8. So, When Are They Gonna Wise Up To Bush?

The biggest source of Drugging in the country, the Father of Lies, when are Bush and his GOP cronies going to go too far, and get these couch potatoes out of their ruts and into the mode for change? Which child is the right child, the ultimate sacrifice that pushes out the evil that afflicts this country? Why does there have to be any such sacrifice in the first place? Haven't we had enough already in the 4+ years of the reign of mad King George?

[pelagius]

9. Speed kills.

Always has. Even in the 60s we knew that.