METH SITE

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The abandoned barns and homes where methamphetamine is made smell like fouled diapers.

The stimulant is enormously addictive and the chance of relapse is as high as the users themselves, according to healthcare leaders, police, court officials and others who gathered Friday to talk about what has been stamped as Ventura County's biggest drug problem.

And while meth makes the user feel as invincible as a superhero, it's more destructive than kryptonite. It feasts on body and brain, transforming everything from the way people process emotion to how they smile.

"When I pull teeth," said Dr. Stephen Treible, a dentist who sometimes treats meth users at the Ventura County Jail, "I have to say which one hurts because they all should come out."

Horror stories about meth were tossed out by a roundtable panel at the county's Juvenile Justice Center in El Rio. Congresswoman Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, called the meeting as a way to better understand the meth problem. She kicked the discussion off by citing a statistic: About half of the kids in the county's juvenile hall have tried the drug.

But parents often know nothing of its symptoms or effects. Nor do some family members of adults who are addicted, said Ventura County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Geoff Dean. He told of a person who knew nothing about a spouse's meth use though the addiction spanned a decade.

Dean called for more education about the drug. He suggested schools hold programs aimed at parents, and teachers assign students homework about the damage meth does to the body.

And if people think the drug doesn't penetrate into middle- and upper-class homes and neighborhoods, they're fooling themselves.

"It goes across socioeconomic lines more than any other drug I've seen," Dean said.

County leaders have formed a methamphetamine task force that is tracking the magnitude of the problem and the best ways to fight it. Juvenile detention leaders are trying to counter the dearth of public treatment programs aimed at youth.

In a program that could begin as soon as June, as many as 25 kids in the court system with meth problems would be sent to a county school classroom that would incorporate treatment as part of its curriculum. They wouldn't have to go anywhere; the care would come to them.

"We know just letting addicted kids go back to their own environment doesn't work," said Kathy Back, juvenile detention alternatives coordinator. "That's pretty much guaranteed recidivism. We're trying to give kids other options."

Others on the panel said the only hope for effectively fighting meth is to come up with big-picture strategies that involve a wide array of agencies.

"You can work with the kids, but you're not going to be effective unless you work with the parents and the community and the schools," said Karen Staples, director of the county probation agency.

Capps gave county leaders her commitment to try to find federal money that can be used to fight meth and raise awareness about the problem.