Drugs do cause a lot of tragedy, she and the three dozen illegal and legal substance users and abusers interviewed for this story agree. But blaming drugs for society's ills just ensures the epidemic will continue — and so will the shoring up of funding streams for the courts and government agencies assigned to deal with the problem, they say.

Every product advertisement or public education campaign on any product or service, be it hamburgers or drug rehab, is based on three overriding human emotions, Stookey said. They are fear, uncertainty and doubt. So common is that human state of being that advertising agencies use the FUD acronym in campaigns. "Hit any of those three states of mind, and you've hit your target."

Worse than drugs?

There are positive steps being made, such as the drug court approach, which emphasizes treatment over jail. The endmethnow campaign currently under way avoids the old "this is your body on drugs" scare tactic.

But those both in and out of the drug scene, to a person, say all of the public education campaigns, all of the drug conferences and all of the brain research in the world reinforces one thing: the public notion that there's nothing worse than drugs.

"Oh yes there is, and every person and every police officer who thinks that will tell you there's something worse: somebody who uses drugs," said Michael DeSmet, a Sugar House resident who was arrested in February for possession and intent to distribute methamphetamine.

Since his arrest, he has lost his livelihood, his pickup truck with its $4,000 stereo and $7,000 in construction tools locked in the back. He also lost any respect he had for law enforcement in Utah.

"I've cooperated and am doing everything they've asked for, and I'm being thrashed," said DeSmet, who readily admits to regularly using methamphetamine but who adamantly denies distributing the illegal stimulant or having any intent to do so.

During an evidentiary hearing on April 15, his original charges were upped to a first-degree felony possession with intent to distribute and a second count for distribution near a church or school.

He was evicted from his house, which came with his storage shed management job, and he lost his job because of the charges. He hasn't been paid for his work, he said, which, including overtime, amounts to about $40,000. He is being given a hearing before the labor commission and goes back to court on his charges May 5.

"They have authority to go as far as they want to go and resort to any means to thwart or to appear to be thwarting the drug craze," he said.