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Topic: Berkowitz Interview Draws Criticism
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rapturewatcher
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Member # 94
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posted
Woman proclaims Jesus saved her on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel June 24, 04
"I tried for six years to get off Meth, but it took two months in jail
& the good Lord to do it"
Devil's drug
Methamphetamine madness has ravaged the Panhandle, ruining lives. Now the war is heading for Central Florida.
By Wes Smith | Sentinel National Correspondent Posted June 24, 2004 International force cracks ring Jun 24, 2004
PENSACOLA -- Jeana Griffin, lost in her addiction, stood on the porch of her rural Panhandle home firing a .357-caliber handgun at visions of camouflaged soldiers attacking from the woods.
Months later, real raiders descended.
Holmes County deputies arrested Griffin and dismantled the illegal methamphetamine lab in her home, one of scores seized in the past year and a half there.
Meth madness has struck Northwest Florida, taxing government resources, burning homes, blowing up hotel rooms and endangering children. The war is raging in the Panhandle but moving toward Central Florida, perhaps in the bed of a pickup where someone is "cooking" the highly addictive stimulant.
Twenty-six labs have been seized in Brevard, six in Orange and six in Volusia so far in the 2004 budget year.
"We have three times the number we did five years ago," said Agent Danny Banks of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Orlando. Statewide, meth-lab raids have increased nearly tenfold -- from 28 in 2001 to 269 in 2003, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. As of mid-June, 248 more labs have been shut down this year.
In the Panhandle, children are among the hardest-hit.
Holmes County deputies, who seized 59 meth labs last year, found a 9-day-old baby in a meth kitchen. The child's flesh was stained red from chemicals used to cook the drug.
In other raids, deputies discovered a 10-year-old addict fed meth by her mother, a 4-year-old who boasted about helping his father in a lab filled with explosive chemicals and adolescent girls prostituted by their parents to pay for more drugs.
"I saw girls trading their bodies for drugs at 13 and 14," said Griffin, 34, of Caryville, who says she is drug-free and counseling other meth addicts. "It is a scary thing. We called it the devil's drug."
Kids in danger
Nationally, about 6,000 children were found at meth-lab sites from 2000 to 2002, and 55 children were killed or injured at meth-lab sites during the same period, according to the DEA.
"We've charged some lab operators with child abuse and endangerment, and we've taken a lot of kids into our custody, which is another problem generated by this," Bay County Sheriff W. Frank McKeithen said.
She was hooked on the drug within two months of her first experience with it. The high comes faster and lasts longer than cocaine, "and the desire for more is a lot worse," she said.
"I tried for six years to get off meth, but it took two months in jail and the good Lord to do it," Griffin said.
She turned to prostitution to fund her habit. Her husband left her. She was beaten and raped.
"I traded everything I had for drugs," Griffin said. "My teeth were rotting out of my head. I picked my skin until it left scars. God only knows the damage it has done inside."
Wes Smith can be reached at 407-420-5672 or dwsmith@orlandosentinel.com.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news...-home-headlines
Posts: 187 | Registered: Jun 2002
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KnowHim
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Member # 1
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Berkowitz Interview Draws Criticism
by Stuart Shepard, correspondent
Focus on the Family broadcast featured testimony of a changed man.
Are there stories of redemption that should not be told? Focus on the Family is under fire for sharing the salvation story of David Berkowitz.
In the 1970's, Berkowitz, who was known as "Son of Sam," murdered six people and wounded seven others. He was sent to jail, where, after a number of years, a fellow prisoner shared the Gospel.
Said Berkowitz, of his conversion: "I deserve to be in Hell right now for the things I did. But, in spite of that, God, Who is rich in mercy, reached out to me in my darkest time and lifted me up."
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