POINT OF THE MOUNTAIN — A decade of snorting and shooting methamphetamine left Kathy Garcia physically, emotionally and spiritually battered. Her intense desire for the drug put her in abusive relationships, caused her to lose good jobs and eventually separated her from her children.

"That drug just had my soul," she says.

Now, the state of Utah has her body. She is incarcerated in the Utah State Prison for drug possession, forgery, joyriding and escape.

Garcia, 30, is among a ballooning population of women inmates, whose growth outpaces men 7 percent to 2 percent, according to Utah prison officials.

Most are there because of drugs.

A new Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice survey shows 62 percent of women prisoners are imprisoned for drug-related crime. More than three-fourths were high or drunk when they committed a crime.

Nearly half cited meth as their drug of choice. Cocaine is a distance second. Prison statistics show the overwhelming majority will return to prison, most likely on a drug-related crime.

Garcia is one of 72 inmates enrolled in Excell, an intensive drug treatment program exclusively for women. Another 72 are in pre-treatment. The waiting list numbers 130.

But the program accommodates less than a quarter of women inmates, 95 percent of whom list overcoming drug addiction as their top priority, said Don Lankford, Excell director.

Like other publicly funded rehab programs, Excell can't afford to treat everyone. Furthermore, a grant that provides nearly half of its $186,000 budget expires next summer. The Utah Department of Corrections must pull money from other areas to cover the difference.

Additional money for treatment is vital, said Gary Blair, prison substance abuse administrator, noting the normal 75 percent inmate recidivism rate drops to less than 25 percent in both women's and men's programs.

"The substance abuse programs are good investments in funding reductions of incarceration," he said.

A cocaine addict in her late teens, Garcia happened on crank, meth's forerunner, accidentally.

Thinking the white powder her husband gave her was coke, Garcia laid out what it usually took her to get high. She snorted a line of white powder the size of a pencil. Although she hated meth at first, there were benefits. She found she could get more done around the house. She felt like supermom with her children. And life with her abusive, drug-using husband, who once beat her with a remote control for buying a $7 pair of pants at Kmart, was easier.

"When my husband fought with me or beat me, I wouldn't care because it didn't hurt," she said.