The meth issue: No one is immune

Editor's note: This is the third in a four-part series of articles exploring the drug trade coming in or traveling through Windham County. This article explores the growing problem of methamphetamine. Though not yet a problem in Vermont, the drug is becoming a big problem for rural America.

Bradford County, Pa., in the northeastern reaches of the state, bills itself as "in the heart of the endless mountains" and home of "breath-taking vistas and winding country roads."

It's the place where Zachary Gates grew up. Gates, an attorney for Brattleboro law firm Downs, Rachlin & Martin, said the area is a lot like Windham County. Small, rural communities dotted with dairy farms ... a great place to raise a family.

Around 2000, an Iowan by the name of Les Molyneaux moved to Towanda, Pa., in the heart of Bradford County, and started cooking methamphetamine. By the time Molyneaux was arrested, he had shown his associates how to make his own brand of meth. Slowly, the recipe spread and, within a few years, the rural landscape "had been brought to its knees" by the devastating drug, said Gates.

Somehow, things got even worse.

In 2004, two sheriff's deputies arrived at a residence in Wells Township, a town on the New York border, with a warrant for failure to appear in court. The two deputies, both family men, were shot and killed. A 36-hour manhunt followed before an arrest was made.

"It was absolutely gut-wrenching

for the county," Gates said. "It was shocking." The man at fault for the shooting, a convicted felon named Dustin Briggs, was found guilty on two counts of murder and sentenced to death.

According to a report by The Daily and Sunday Review, out of Towanda, the two deputies, Michael VanKuren and Chris Burgert, were serving a warrant on the house where a suspected meth lab was reported to be.

The crime was unlike anything the area had seen. Gates stated the crime ruined the lives of many people, all over a dangerous homemade drug.

"Everybody lost," he said. Addiction to meth spread throughout the region "like wildfire," assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Casey was quoted saying in Newsweek in August 2005. Casey told the magazine that the drug took hold of entire families and turned them into "zombies." The area even found itself a new nickname from law enforcement officials, who call Bradford County "meth valley."

Gates, at the time the meth epidemic arrived in his hometown, was at Pennsylvania State University studying law. His law review at Penn State took on his interest in environmental law and focused on the issue that had hit home -- clandestine methamphetamine laboratories.

In the review, Gates writes that meth labs, and therefore meth use, usually set up shop in small towns. There, the environmental dangers of the drug and the process to make it exposed everyone in the house, including children.

"As methamphetamine laboratories move out of the archetypal abandoned warehouse setting and into private residences to avoid detection, children increasingly are exposed to hazardous chemicals which they might ingest or inhale," Gates writes.

Abuse of methamphetamine is widespread in the country, particularly in the West and Midwest. According to data from the National Clandestine Laboratory Database, just one such lab was seized in Vermont in 2004. By comparison, California had 525, Washington state had 395, and Missouri topped the list with 1,018 labs seized.

The numbers, for the most part, remain high in many parts of the country. But the Northeast is an exception. In Massachusetts, three labs, in Maine, three as well. In Connecticut and Rhode Island, no labs were reported.

An estimated 10.4 million people over the age of 12 have tried methamphetamine at some time in their lives, according to a research report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"I don't think we've seen any state that's immune," said Garrison Courtney, a DEA spokesman.

The ingredients in meth vary, but often includes inexpensive over-the-counter ingredients found in cold medicine.

Federal and state laws restrict access to large amounts of the cold medicines such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Under the law, cold medicines that contain the ingredients sought by meth producers are kept behind the counter. Across the country, anyone who needs to purchase more than a 30-day supply must have a doctor's note for permission. People must also present identification when buying the medicine.

After a similar regulation went into effect in Iowa, police seized 20 labs a month, down from 120 before the law was in place, according to information from Join Together, an anti-drug organization of the Boston University School of Public Health.

Vermont passed a law that is essentially the same as the federal law, but adds state penalties and remains in effect should the federal law ever be withdrawn.

But even if Vermont has only seen a couple clandestine labs busted in the past few years, authorities say the state is poised to have a surge in meth use.

Given that factor, and the state's proximity to Canada, where the drug and its ingredients could be smuggled from, Vermont is poised for a meth problem and the authorities know it. A member of Vermont State Police recently shared a story that in New Hampshire's North Country, a man was stopped coming in from Canada with several hundred pounds of ephedra, which could be used to make massive quantities of meth.

Adding to the area's vulnerability, nearby New Hampshire is well aware that meth has arrived in the state. Over an 18-month period starting in 2004, 18 meth labs were seized in all of New England. Twelve of those were located in New Hampshire, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services.

Yet, Vermont remains relatively untouched.

Still, every now and then there are reminders in the state, and even Windham County, that the drug has arrived.

In February 2004, a middle-aged man was discovered dead in his Brattleboro home. Police originally thought his death, which had no witnesses, was as a result of alcohol. His body was sent to the Vermont medical examiner's office for an autopsy and police got some surprising news, according to John Martin, chief of the Brattleboro Police Department.

His death, it turns out, was the result of a lethal combination of alcohol and methamphetamine. Other than a random discovery of a bag of meth on the street, the Brattleboro Police Department has not dealt with the drug since.

In June 2004, two Arkansas men were arrested for running the state's first known methamphetamine lab in Shrewsbury. Monty Ray Barrows, 40, and Glen Fitzgerald, 33, both of Omaha, were arrested after police received a tip from a woman living in the home that the men were cooking meth.

The men had been making the drug in Missouri, one of the hardest-hit states in the meth epidemic, but came to Vermont because there was a lot of "heat" on them that they thought they could escape here.

In May 2005, the Hartford Police Department found what appeared to be a meth lab in the Hartford Town Forest. Over the next several months, an investigation by the Vermont State Police Drug Task Force revealed a New Hampshire man was manufacturing and selling the drug, according to a U.S. Justice Department press release.

Matthew Dunbar, of Canaan, N.H., sold meth to undercover officer on two occasions and was arrested after the second sale. He was charged federally and prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Thomas Anderson. He was sentenced to 60 months in prison for manufacturing and attempting to manufacture methamphetamine, according to the press release.

Even though Vermont meth use is low, the state isn't taking any chances. Through comprehensive prevention programs, the state works hard to prevent widespread drug abuse in general.

Next: Over the years there have been various approaches to preventing drug abuse. "We've had to learn from our mistakes," said Robin Rieske, one of the state's drug abuse prevention specialists who works in Brattleboro.

Patrick J. Crowley can be reached at pcrowley@reform-er.com, or 802-254-2311, ext. 277.

Part 1: The drug trade hits home

Part 2: The Perfect Route

Part 4: Searching for the cure

Part 5: Officials take a case-by-case approach