'Scares the daylights out of me': Police say meth use is creeping up in southcentral Pa.

While fentanyl and other opioids remain in the spotlight, police in southcentral Pennsylvania are gearing up for what could be a more violent fight against methamphetamine. 

Commonly referred to as just "meth," the drug's use has been creeping up in the Chambersburg area for the past six months, Police Chief Ron Camacho told U.S. Rep. John Joyce on Wednesday afternoon at a roundtable discussion with other law enforcement and municipal officials. More people are using cocaine, too, he said.  

A 3-year-old Greencastle girl died in early 2018 after ingesting meth, said that town's police chief, John Phillipy. A 30-year-old woman died from a cocaine overdose days ago, he added. 

A representative from Franklin County Adult Probation said a person failed a drug test for meth just that morning. It's among a handful of recent cases that department has seen. 

Washington Township's police chief, Barry Keller, said authorities have encountered meth there, too. 

"We're finding out that they may have been into heroin, but now they are starting to dabble in meth and starting to have some much more serious problems," he said. 

Meth and cocaine are stimulants and generally have the opposite effect of fentanyl, heroin and other opioids. That difference could lead to an uptick in violent crimes, as the substances may make users more likely to act out, Camacho said. He expects meth-related crimes will become more prevalent in about a year's time. 

It "scares the daylights out of me," he added. 

More:U.S. Rep. John Joyce focuses on border security, immigration during first month in office

Drug cartels reach southcentral Pa. 

The increase in meth use was quick to come up in the discussion that Joyce, R-Hollidaysburg, led with officials from Franklin and Adams counties. He recently spent several days at the southern border in Yuma, Arizona, and learned how the drug cartels' operations there could be reaching his district on the other side of the country. He brought the local officials together to find out how the drug trade at the border is affecting local towns and citizens. 

Joyce said an objective of the discussion was to substantiate an argument he and other Pennsylvania lawmakers made last week in a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf, urging him to send the state's National Guard to the border.  

He described watching Mexican youth who attend U.S. public schools being used as drug mules, and said he watched as cartels outsmarted and out-resourced the border agents by crossing the border when there was no one to stop them. Joyce said an agent told him that drugs crossing the border there in Yuma would be distributed in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and eventually make it to southcentral Pennsylvania. 

Camacho said what Joyce learned on the ground lines up with what his department's drug officer sees on the borough streets.

"The cartels got smart. They know we're putting all this attention on heroin, so they pivot, right? They took a left turn and now, you know, they're going to meth," he said. 

'Dying is preferred to living'

One of Joyce's goals at the border is to cut off the drug supply. But local police said they have seen in their communities that as long as there is a demand, the supply will come from somewhere. 

Drug abuse is not the problem, but rather a symptom, Phillipy said. The real problem is that today's young adults "have never been given the tools in their lives to deal with reality." 

Phillipy and others noted that D.A.R.E., a federal program that educated youth on the dangers of drug use, could be helpful if it was still in use today. Mya Graves, an intern with the Borough of Waynesboro who just graduated from that area's high school, said she doesn't recall ever going through such a program. 

Phillipy told a story of talking to a 20-year-old man accused of robbing the bank. Once the actual interview was completed, Phillipy stuck around to talk to him, "just two guys talking." 

The man was a heroin addict. Phillipy asked if all the talk about fentanyl and other opioids bothered him. 

"He said, 'no, not at all.' I'm like, how can that not bother you?  He says, 'because you don't understand. On any given day, dying is preferred to living.'

"You're not going to enforce that mentality out of existence," Phillipy continued. "It's a result of the fact we haven't given kids the tools to deal with reality." 

More:U.S. congressman for Franklin and Adams counties to visit border, observe 'crisis' there

What is the tipping point? 

Several of the police chiefs in attendance estimated that at least half of their cases are related to the drug trade. 

Ben Thomas, mayor of Greencastle, said he wonders when federal, state and local governments will reach the tipping point, when the cost of providing police and emergency services and paying for corrections becomes too much. He noted Greencastle - a town of just over 4,000 people, had an "unheard of" 2,300 emergency calls last year, and that nearly three-fourths of Franklin County's budget is devoted to crime and corrections. 

At the same time, police departments and municipalities may no longer be seeing the full extent of the opioid crisis. Keller said he believes the wide availability of nalaxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses, keeps the true number of overdoses hidden from authorities. 

Waynesboro Police Chief Jim Sourbier commented on the complicated issues that comprise the drug epidemic.

 "It strikes me strange that given the power of the federal government, we damn near made it a felony to smoke a cigarette, yet we sit around and wring our hands in wondrous amazement into how and why it seems to be that we can't get a handle on the scourge of controlled substances."