STUDY: WYOMING TEEN METH USE DOUBLE NATIONAL AVERAGE

GREEN RIVER, Wyo.  ( AP ) - Wyoming teen-agers are more than twice as likely to have used methamphetamine in the past year than the national average, according to a survey.

The two-year American Drug and Alcohol Survey released last fall and other statistics emphasize the need for a methamphetamine treatment center in Sweetwater County, Southwest Counseling Service specialist Kim Swanson said.

The center is in the midst of a month-long campaign to show the severity of Wyoming's methamphetamine problem.

Southwest Wyoming, in particular, is struggling to overcome a surge in methamphetamine use that has hit the West hard as the cocaine trade declines.

Gov.  Jim Geringer's 1999 anti-methamphetamine initiative proposes to help fund a methamphetamine treatment center using the former Union Pacific clubhouse in Green River.  Southwest Counseling Service would manage the pilot program.

According to the drug and alcohol survey, one in 20 Wyoming high school seniors had used methamphetamine during the previous month.  Compared to use over the previous year, that measure is five times the national average.

State Department of Criminal Investigation figures show that methamphetamine now accounts for nearly half of all drug-related arrests in Wyoming.  Of 169 drug arrests in southwest Wyoming in 1999, 68 involved methamphetamine.

The agency also reports that it seized five alleged methamphetamine labs in southwest Wyoming, including four in Sweetwater County.

With so much methamphetamine use in the county, parents must educate themselves about the drug and symptoms of use, said Laura Schmid-Pizzato, manager of Child, Adolescent and Family Services for Southwest Counseling Services.

The organization's anti-methamphetamine campaign is to culminate with meetings in Rock Springs on Feb.  29 and Green River on March 2.

"We're going to have our prevention specialists and hopefully some law enforcement people" to answer questions, Swanson said.

The meetings are scheduled for 6:30-8 p.m.  each night.

The drug and alcohol survey from 1997 through 1998 was funded in part by the Wyoming Governor's Substance Abuse and Violent Crime Advisory Board.