by John Gessner
Thisweek Newspapers

The voices in David Parnell's head told him to kill the mailman because he was an undercover narcotics cop.

The voices finally told Parnell to kill himself, which an attempted hanging and a shotgun blast into the bottom of his chin failed to do.

After 18 surgeries to repair his once-gruesomely disfigured face, Parnell is on the road, speaking to audiences nationwide about methamphetamine.

The Tennessee resident came to Burnsville High School Oct. 20 to speak at a public forum on the drug that nearly took his life.

Forum speakers sounded an alarm about a drug epidemic whose damage can be measured in crime statistics and ruined lives.

"Burnsville is having a methamphetamine problem, and you are part of the solution,î Burnsville police Capt. Eric Werner told an audience that forum organizers estimated at 250 to 300.

In his 28 years in the county attorney's office, "I have never seen a problem that is more pervasive, more dangerous and more scary than methamphetamine,î said Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom.

Meth is an ephedrine-based stimulant that has an adrenaline-like effect on the central nervous system. Effects of the highly addictive drug are more prolonged than those of other amphetamines, and withdrawal more intense. Meth can cause hallucinations and raving, psychotic behavior, especially in the latter stages of a prolonged binge when successive doses fail to produce the euphoric rush users crave.

The drug, used mostly by white people, spread rapidly in the 1990s thanks to California "super labs,î Mexican drug traffickers and homegrown labs where cookers get their chemical recipes off the Internet.

The Midwest has been plagued by meth for about three years, Backstrom said.

Earlier this year in Burnsville a meth abuser brutally murdered his aunt; another tried to use a butcher knife on his ex-girlfriend and police until officers shot him, said Police Chief Bob Hawkins. The man suffered leg wounds.

Hawkins said police are starting a special unit to deal with drug-related street crimes, such as the weapons, drug and aggravated-assault cases that rose at an "alarming rateî from January to April, and the burglaries that rose by 159 percent compared with the same period last year.

Police will also give presentations about meth to community groups in the coming year, Werner said.

Adult prosecutions for methamphetamine grew from a handful several years ago to 418 in 2004 -- one-fourth of all adult prosecutions in Dakota County, Backstrom said.

Add drug-related crimes and you get 60 to 70 percent of the county's adult criminal caseload, with meth emerging as the driving force, he said. The county and 1st Judicial District judges are working to establish a drug court, Backstrom said.

Meth "affects people you would never think of,î he said. "It's affected people in my office in terms of their extended families.î

Meth labs are environmental and safety hazards where a variety of chemicals are used to cook the drug around the core ingredient ephedrine, said Rebecca Sherman, a detective with the Dakota County Drug Task Force.

Dangerous chemicals and paranoid drug cookers are not a good mix, said Sherman, who works in rural Dakota County.

"Any time I hear the news and hear news of a fire, I immediately think it must be a meth lab,î she said.

At a meth house in Lakeville officers found jars of chemicals stored next to the children's sippy cups and popsicles, Sherman said.

"The kids get their hands on this stuff and they are dead,î she said.

Officers raided 28 meth labs in Dakota County last year. The county has an ordinance requiring property owners to clean up the chemical messes and a medical protocol for children found in meth labs, said Gina Adasiewicz, a county public health nurse.

If the speeches weren't enough to jolt the audience, there were plenty of pictures of meth abusers with lined, hollowed faces, ugly lesions and missing teeth.

For many, one use brings addiction, Sherman said.

Parnell, a father of seven who served two years in prison for selling drugs, said he started smoking pot with his dad at age 13.

Meth "explodedî in Tennessee in 1995, and Parnell eagerly partook. When his second wife nagged him about his addiction, Parnell said he got her to try meth so she'd get hooked, too.

"Before that the kids always had their mother to take care of them when I was locked up in the back of the house,î said Parnell, 38, "but now their mother is locked up back there with me.î

She eventually kicked the drug, and Parnell was able to abstain in fits and starts. He resumed using meth in February 2003, at which point wife Amy announced she was taking the kids and leaving.

That's when Parnell stuck the rifle under his chin, blowing bits of teeth and bone into his wife's arm.

In the hospital he learned Amy was expecting his seventh child.

"I knew that kid was going to have a better start than the rest of my kids, because I knew my days were over,î Parnell said.

But they weren't. Parnell survived, sobered up, and credits his faith for keeping him clean.

"As long as you're still breathing,î he said, "things can get better.î

The forum was sponsored by the city of Burnsville, Dakota County and Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191. For more information, visit www.facingthethreat.com.

John Gessner is at burnsville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

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