Meth menace.

Byline: LARRY BACON The Register-Guard

WAITRESSES BUSTLE about the cramped meeting room at a Bandon restaurant, serving up seafood and chowder to a group of people gathered to consider one of the grimmest of subjects.

A local service club has invited a retired Nevada parole officer named Larry Frerkes to talk to its members about methamphetamine - an illegal drug he says is destroying families and lives throughout Coos County.

The room grows quiet as Frerkes (pronounced FUR-cus), the leader of a countywide campaign to combat meth abuse, calls attention to a display of newspaper clippings about Coos County homicides. In the past 10 years, he says, 18 people died in meth-related killings.

The dead included three adults and two children killed by Girley Crum Jr. in a 1996 trailer park slaughter. Crum, who is serving a life sentence in prison without possibility of parole, was "tweaking" when he killed his victims, a condition that typically follows a meth "high," Frerkes says.

The popularity of methamphetamine, also known as "crank," appears to be growing in Coos County. Fifteen clandestine meth labs were busted in the county last year, up from three the year before. And a recent state survey indicated that the number of Coos County adults abusing methamphetamine increased from 0.3 percent in 1995 to 3.8 percent in 1999, one of the highest rates in the state.

That means that by 1999, nearly 1,800 of the adults in Coos County were meth abusers, or about one out of every 28.

Methamphetamine abuse is one of the main reasons Coos County has the shameful distinction of having the highest child abuse rate in the state, Frerkes tells the gathering, noting that 79 percent of the children placed in foster care have parents who are addicted to meth.

Between 1999 and 2001, he says, Coos County had a 300 percent increase in violent crimes in which drugs were involved, and in 69 percent of those cases the drug was meth.

"Cause and effect," he says. "Methamphetamine is at the root of so many social ills in this county. It is ripping it apart, and something needs to be done about it."

Combating the menace

Something is being done - a war on methamphetamine abuse. And the Bandon Welcome Club is just one of dozens of groups across the county Frerkes has met with to spread the word.

After spending 30 years in law enforcement, Frerkes, 50, is the paid coordinator of a new nonprofit Coos County organization called the Methamphetamine Abuse Prevention and Intervention Project, which aims to combat meth abuse through public education, by treating addicts, and by pushing for more drug testing in the workplace.

The project is being financed by a $181,000 three-year grant from the Catholic Health Initiative, a nonprofit organization that operates medical facilities across the country and each year gives millions in grants to help communities address health care issues.

Frerkes is being paid $40,000 per year - more than a third less than he was making in his parole officer job in Reno - and he works 65 to 70 hours a week. But his only domestic companion is a collie named Tess, so he doesn't mind the long hours.

What sets the Coos County project apart is an idea borrowed from the Neighborhood Watch program that is designed to drive meth cooks and pushers out of local neighborhoods. "If you have a (meth) problem in your neighborhood, you now have something you can do about it," Frerkes says.

The program teaches neighbors what to look for, warning signals such as lots of cars coming and going, money changing hands, strange chemical smells, trash that includes coffee filters stained milky red or yellow, and lights on all night as the meth dealers - who usually also are abusers - stay high for days at a time.

Frerkes, who has been a police officer in big cities such as Los Angeles and who worked as an undercover narcotics agent in Colorado, also encourages neighbors to look for telltale indicators such as reflectors posted outside a meth house: A green reflector means open for business; a red reflector means no meth is available.

Organizing a neighborhood also involves a "saturation walk" to hand out information and data sheets for logging suspicious activity, he says, noting that the more information that comes in, the better the chance police will be able to get a search warrant and shut down a meth house.

Anti-meth campaigns cause neighbors to get acquainted and to learn to watch out for each other, he says, and if there are any drug dealers in the neighborhood they learn that they are being watched.

One of the side effects of meth abuse is paranoia, he says, so even if a meth house isn't busted, the dealer might stop selling, or, better yet, move.

Coos County law enforcement agencies don't have enough money and staff to combat the growing meth abuse problem alone, Frerkes says, so community help is vital. "This is truly the answer to the problem," he says.

Coos County law enforcement officials agree. "If you don't have public support you can't do anything," says Dan Looney, coordinator of the South Coast Interagency Narcotics Team, which serves Coos and Curry counties. "You have to have a grass-roots effort."

West Coast notoriety

Chuck Karl, who heads the federally funded High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program in Oregon, says 580 meth labs or related chemical dumps in the state were shut down last year, up from 330 in 2000 and 250 in 1999.

In 2001, Oregon ranked fifth in the nation behind Missouri, California, Washington and Kansas in the number of meth labs or dump sites. But Karl says the three West Coast states have more high-production labs and turn out more meth than Kansas or Missouri, where the drug is produced in smaller "mom and pop" labs.

Lane County, which had 57 meth labs shut down in 2001 and 54 the year before, is one of six Oregon counties nominated for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area designation, which would make it eligible for a share of $2.5 million in federal money allocated each year to support interagency efforts against meth abuse. Three Oregon counties - Marion, Jackson and Deschutes - already have the designation.

Kent Mortimore, Lane County chief deputy district attorney, says methamphetamine appears to be the illegal drug of choice in Lane County, as it is in Coos County. "Meth has its tentacles in just about every class of crime that we prosecute," he says.

Law enforcement agencies say meth abuse initially surged on the West Coast in the 1980s, when the drug was being produced and distributed by outlaw biker gangs.

The production process used then required large, elaborate labs, and the chemical compound phenol-2-propanone was the key ingredient. Now smaller, more mobile labs start the process with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, found in common cold and flu medicines.

Federal drug enforcement administrator Asa Hutchinson, who recently visited Oregon, acknowledges that the state has a significant meth problem, but he credits state officials for passing new laws that toughen penalties for meth cooks and restrict the availability of precursor chemicals used to produce the drug.

"I'm also impressed with the extraordinary level of law enforcement cooperation with community efforts in reducing the meth problem," Hutchinson says.

Coos County District Attorney Paul Burgett says one thing that's needed to halt the proliferation of meth abuse is a change in public attitude. "One reason (illegal) drugs exist," he says, "is we tolerate them."

Organizing moves slowly

Frerkes got a warm welcome in Bandon but has yet to hear whether any Bandon neighborhoods have agreed to organize to combat meth abuse. Only two Coos County neighborhoods have done so, he says.

The first was near Coquille and the second was the Old Marshfield neighborhood south of Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, an area that has at least two residences that neighbors believe might be drug houses.

Frerkes says efforts are moving forward in two other areas of Coos Bay, in one neighborhood in North Bend and in one Lakeside neighborhood.

He's a little disappointed that more Coos County neighborhoods haven't organized but suspects that some people are reluctant to get involved for fear of retaliation.

Former state Rep. Mike Lehman, a member of the five-member board for the Coos County meth project, says people who abuse methamphetamine aren't likely to retaliate against anyone.

"These are a bunch of lowlife folks," he says. "They're more worried about getting the money together for their next fix than about some neighbor having a neighborhood meeting."

The greater danger, Lehman says, comes from allowing drug abusers to remain in a neighborhood. They're people who may steal from you to support their habit, he says, or, in a meth-induced rage, "beat the hell out of you" for parking too close to their car.

Frerkes also warns that a meth lab explosion could kill or injure children if they were playing in a nearby yard.

Elizabeth Holcombe, an Old Marshfield resident, says she welcomes the program. A mother of five, she says she knows meth abusers can do some bizarre and potentially dangerous things.

Laura Jo Hofsess, a funeral home director since 1988 who helped organize about 100 homes near Rink Creek Lane east of Coquille, was prompted to do so after police raided a meth lab in a nearby house.

One reason Hofsess got involved is that in her business as a funeral director, she had seen too many victims of meth abuse and meth-induced violence.

Looking to the future

How effective the Coos County meth project will be remains to be seen.

David Darling, a local assisted living center manager who helped obtain the grant to pay for the project, is confident that it will pay off. "I think we're having an impact now and will have an impact over time," he says.

He and Lehman say the large number of people who attended community meetings during the six years leading up to the methamphetamine project indicates that there is broad support for doing something about the problem.

After some false starts, they say, the project finally came together when Frerkes was hired last October. They describe him as a bundle of energy who hit the ground running. Darling calls him a "doer."

Posters are now up around the community listing a hot line number people can call to get referrals for treatment or counseling. Other posters offer a $500 reward for information leading to shutting down a meth lab.

One reward has been paid so far, for a lab that was busted. A poster-generated tip was key to removing a second lab that already was under investigation, and Frerkes says other cases are being developed with information generated by responses to the posters.

He also has been working with the business community and expects that the day will come when store owners routinely phone police when people make large or frequent purchases of substances such as cold tablets and iodine, used in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Frerkes says some businesses need education on a new methamphetamine precursor law that went into effect in January. For some meth ingredients, the new law restricts the amount that can be sold but has no reporting requirement.

By the time his grant runs out and his job ends, Frerkes hopes to see fewer meth abusers in Coos County and hopes that the drug will be harder to obtain. He believes that elements of the programs he has set up will be continued and that the meth project will serve as a model for other counties in Oregon and elsewhere around the country.

One of Frerkes' chief concerns, which is shared by local law enforcement officials and social service agency representatives, is that the South Coast Interagency Narcotics Team may disappear because of a lack of funding.

In the past, the team has been paid for primarily with money generated by forfeitures of cash and property related to drug crimes. But a new state law greatly limits the use of seized property to fund law enforcement efforts, and participating law enforcement agencies in Coos and Curry counties haven't yet come up with replacement funding. The law allows 40 percent of the proceeds from criminal forfeitures to go to law enforcement but none from civil seizures.

Looney, the narcotics team coordinator, says the team probably will run out of money by October or November. If it folds, drug activity can be expected to spiral upward, he says.

"If I were a meth cook, and this was the only place in Oregon with no narcotics team, where do you think I would go?" he asks.

If the team goes away, Frerkes says he and others in the meth project will continue their war, but it will be much tougher. "The fight has to be fought for the future of this community," he says. "If we don't, we're all potential victims down the road."

WHERE TO GET HELP

WHERE TO CALL

Oregon Partnership statewide help line - toll-free (800) 923-HELP

South Coast help line - 266-7203 or toll-free [phone]

White Bird Clinic crisis line, Eugene - 342-8255

TO REPORT SUSPECTED METH ACTIVITY

South Coast Interagency Narcotics Team, Coos and Curry Counties - 267-3375

Coos County Stop Crime, up to $500 for anonymous tips leading to methamphetamine lab busts - 267-6666 or toll-free [phone]

Lane County Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team - 682-5169,

TO ORGANIZE A COOS COUNTY 'METH WATCH'

Methamphetamine Abuse Prevention & Intervention Project - 756-4151, ext. 359.

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING ABOUT METH

"We could take a five-minute jaunt and buy everything you need to make methamphetamine."

- Larry Frerkes, director, Coos County Methamphetamine Abuse Prevention and Intervention Project

"As soon as I got out (of jail), the first thing I did was went out and got high. It was all I could think about when I was in there."

- Debbie Buckles, 40, former meth addict who has been clean since December

"The people of this community have to be aware of not just the economic costs, but the human suffering caused by meth use. Anybody who sticks a rig in their arm, I have no sympathy for."

- Dale Oester, Oregon State Police detective, Coos Bay

"I had two years clean at one time. I just go one day at a time. I can't say what's going to happen tomorrow."

- Rick Koth, 41, North Bend, former meth addict who has been clean since last July

"He may have injection sites all over him and be ready to OD (overdose) but there is no law in Oregon so you can arrest that guy for possession of a controlled substance. Other states have possession by consumption laws, but we don't."

- Paul Burgett, Coos County district attorney

"If there is a demand, (meth) is going to get through somehow."

- Chuck Karl, director, federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area office, Portland

"In court, if someone is charged with possession of a controlled substance, nine out of 10 times methamphetamine is the controlled substance."

- Judge Richard Barron, Coos County Circuit Court

"People who use drugs don't want to be around straight people."

- Sgt. Dan Looney, Coos County sheriff's office, coordinator South Coast Interagency Narcotics Team

"Everybody gets hurt (from meth) really. Children, adults, taxpayers. Everybody."

- Nancylee Stewart, child welfare services manager, Community Human Services, Coos and Curry counties.

"An awful lot of the kids who are using it (meth), their parents have a history of drug abuse."

- Scott Moore, Coos County sheriff's office detective

CAPTION(S):

The cutline goes in this very spot. Coos County Sheriff's Detective Dan Looney holds two 1-pound bags of methamphetamine from a recent bust worth about $12,000 on the street. THOMAS BOYD / The Register-Guard Funeral home director Laura Jo Hofsess has seen methamphetamine victims' bodies come through her mortuary and has had problems with meth houses near her home and business in Coquille. Don Radford, 78, holds a football photo of his grandson, Jesse Estabrook, who swallowed bags of methamphetamine after his arrest and died in the Coos County Jail. Estabrook had methamphetamine in his system that was nearly 200 times the amount usually considered lethal. Former meth user Lisa Lindsay sings at a faith-based support group she helped start at North Bend's Celebration Center. "I started drinking at high school parties my senior year, tried acid and mushrooms, then started meth at 19. I loved it." - Lisa Culver Lindsay, 36, Coos Bay, former meth addict who has been clean since October 2000 "I started drinking at high school parties my senior year, tried acid and mushrooms, then started meth at 19. I loved it." - LISA CULVER LINDSAY, 36, Coos Bay, former meth addict who has been clean since October 2000