Needed: more drug rehabs

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BORDER="1"> FACE="Verdana,Helvetica,Arial" SIZE="2">Additional information: FACE="Verdana,Helvetica,Arial" SIZE="2"> Generation meth

In a special report called "Generation Meth," the Deseret Morning News investigated how methamphetamine burdens Utah's courts, prisons and social services. The series also chronicles the tragedies and triumphs of women whose lives are shattered by the drug.

To view the report online, click on the link at right.

To order print copies of this series, e-mail know.better@desnews.com or call (801) 236-6050.

PROVO — To understand the power of methamphetamine addiction, consider the case of Uriah Pulley, a 32-year-old Provo man now in jail.

Between October and December 2002, Pulley was arrested nine times for investigation of drug-related charges, most of them involving possession of methamphetamine. He was arrested five times in November alone.

Last week, Pulley again was front of a judge to answer to a drug charge. He was sentenced to one year in jail and ordered to undergo treatment.

Pulley's case is indicative of a larger problem in Utah County, says a prosecutor in the Utah County Attorney's Office.

Guy Probst, a deputy Utah County attorney, says addicts like Pulley continue to re-offend criminally because it's difficult to find substance-abuse treatment — and, in turn, it costs taxpayers hundreds of dollars each time he is arrested and booked for another jail stay.

The last time Pulley was ordered to undergo treatment by the court, he was put on a waiting list to get into Odyssey House, a residential-treatment facility in Salt Lake City. His struggle with addiction couldn't wait, however, and he turned to criminal means for money and drugs.

"The problem is funding," Probst says. "We don't have a long-term treatment facility in Utah County, and there's a waiting list to get into places like Odyssey House. So what you have is a lot of people who look like they are going through a revolving door."

Jay Barth, administrative director at The Gathering Place, a therapy center in Utah Valley, agrees with Probst.