Okanogan Country Real Estate

By Susie Ives
Chronicle staff
     Members of the Meth Action Team are teaching community members how to identify methamphetamine users and manufacturers.
     With the number of meth-related arrests in Okanogan County increasing significantly within the past few years, members of the group say they hope to raise awareness and lower substance abuse.
     Members of the organization include people from law enforcement agencies and public health care.
     Okanogan County sheriff Frank Rogers said he and other members of the group speak to individuals and groups interested in learning more about meth users.
     Sometimes friends and family members suspect loved ones of using the drug, but they don't know what signs to look for. Other times neighbors suspect people of producing meth, and the group shares the types of items often found around the homes and behaviors to watch, said Rogers.
     Rogers said people who suspect a loved one is using methamphetamine should watch for:
   • A personality change, mood swings.
   • Loss of appetite and weight loss.
   • More active behavior, sometimes going days without sleep and then crashing for three to four days.
   • Sores on their skin around the arms and face.
   • Angry and/or aggressive behavior.
   • A chemical smell on the body.
     According to Rogers, longtime meth users get to a point where nothing else matters except for the drug. When the addict comes down from the drug, he or she can become extremely angry or aggressive, he said.
     In addition to mental and emotional changes, addicts sometimes develop sores on their bodies. Rogers said meth sometimes gives the skin a crawling sensation and users will scratch at their bodies until they develop open sores.
     With heavy meth users, the toxins try to escape the body, festering to the skin surface and oozing out. That sometimes results in the user releasing a chemical smell.
     "It's incredible when you try to talk to someone that's in the middle of a high or coming down off one," said Rogers. "Most of the time they talk really fast and admit they don't care about anything - their wife, job, home - nothing."
     Law enforcement officers have a hard time getting information about methamphetamine producers. Rogers said addicts don't want to give up their sources.
     About four years ago, four men were arrested for meth possession. Rogers said they were offered less jail time if they would give up their source, but none would.
     He said he was unsure whether the men were scared or just didn't want to lose their own personal source. Rogers said meth addicts generally don't give up sources as easily as cocaine and marijuana users.
     Rogers said people who suspect their neighbors are manufacturing meth or selling it should watch for high foot traffic to the home. He said people generally stay at the homes for five to 15 minutes, and there could be as many as 30 people going to the home each day.
     Sometimes neighbors can smell chemicals when meth is being cooked.
     Items around meth labs often include lots of open blister packs for pills, antifreeze, denatured alcohol, cans of acetone, toluene, lots of coffee filters with red or whitish colored residue in them, and plastic bottles with hoses sticking out of them. They're often used as generators.
     Other items found around such homes include propane tanks with a blue tinge, starter fluid cans with the bottom opened and torn-apart lithium batteries.