The room is dark, smoky and grungy, the epitome of squalor.

A gang of teenagers is huddled around each other, a glazed look blanketing their faces.

Physically they’re here, in this hellhole, this squatter’s paradise. But, they’re really not.

They’re some place else, some place the ice, crank, speed, glass, chalk — give it a name — took them.

They punched the ticket, went for the ride.

One of them, a young kid, a good looking and bright kid, sits with the group. He wants to be in, wants to be one of them. So he lifts the glass pipe, brings it to his mouth and inhales.

An addict is born.

“You’re in, you’re one of us now,” the others tell him.

“No,” he responds. “I’m trying it just this once.”

The room erupts with laughter. The other teens know what this kid, the newest member of the dead-end club, doesn’t — there’s no such thing as “just this once.”

No such thing as dabbling, or using recreationally. No such thing as getting off this ride.

No such thing at all when you’re talking about meth.

If the situation above, a fictional tale portrayed Thursday during a Communities Overcoming Meth Abuse power point presentation, shocked your sensibilities, don’t fret.

You’re not alone.

COMA, a grass roots anti-drug committee formed in 2004, hosted the public forum as a way to re-educate the community on meth and the destruction it has inflicted, and continues to inflict, on Moffat County.

Those in the audience represented a wide range of interests, exemplifying the community’s concern in battling the highly addictive stimulant.

Law enforcement officers, ex-addicts, prosecutors, community members, treatment experts, City Council members, a minister, a district court judge — all were among the 50 to 60 people in attendance.

Vic Alton, of the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office, guided the audience through a rapid fire assault of information and images.

A half gram of meth, Alton said, is potent enough to kill 50 percent of people trying it for the first time.

Every pound of meth leaves behind 5 to 6 pounds of toxic waste.

The average cost for cleaning up a meth lab site is $150,000.

Most meth addicts are white males 21 to 35 years old, although as Alton pointed out, the drug doesn’t discriminate.

Women are particularly susceptible.

Meth has more “amps” than cocaine.

Some dealers are adding strawberry flavoring to make the usually bitter meth more palatable to kids.

Alton displayed pictures, photos he described as “meth beauty secrets.”

Several of them showed ravaged arms scratched raw by meth users trying to rid their bodies of imaginary bugs. Another showed a wild-eyed man in the midst of paranoia induced by the drug.

And then there was the before and after shots.

On the left: a photograph of a woman in 1998. She is healthy with dark hair, full face and clear skin.

On the right: the same woman in 2002. Her hair is matted and raggedy. Her skin, having lost its elasticity, is stretched tightly across her face and littered with pockmarks.

She is a skeleton, a walking carcass of her former self.

A photo of her today doesn’t exist.

She is dead.

“Needless to say,” COMA chairperson Annette Dunckley said to the hushed crowd, “there isn’t anything funny about meth.”

The drug’s impact on Moffat County has been significant, she said. Methamphetamine related arrests, convictions and drug seizures have increased year after year since 2002. Michael O’Hara, chief judge of the 14th Judicial District, said the court is overloaded with criminal cases, a trend he attributes to meth.

Taxpayers also bear the brunt of incarcerating addicts and paying for their medical and dental care, Alton said.

Addicts, COMA members said, rarely hurt only themselves on the way down. They hurt their families, jeopardize their children’s safety and steal from community members to support their habit.

“Their sole purpose is meth,” Alton said. “That’s what they live for. … It affects all of us, I can promise you. I’ve never seen a drug that decimates a community like this does.”

The second fictional scenario at the forum, similar to the clip played about the teenage boy, wasn’t easier to stomach. It showed a teenage girl’s car tumbling off the street.

The wreck was what could have been. Instead, she did not crash, but ended up in a more dire circumstance that night.

“I didn’t crash,” she said. “I drove to that party and did meth for the first time.”

She said she would have rather broken her neck.

“It’s not bad people who do meth,” Dunckley said. “It’s meth that makes people do bad things.”

Alton, who’s also a COMA member, said it doesn’t take much for a person to be trapped into meth’s downward spiral.

The recipe for ending up a meth addict is basic; all it takes is “one second, one bad decision,” he said.

“The minute they take meth, their life is changed forever,” Alton said. “For their family, life is changed forever. Those are not good changes.”

But, a life of meth doesn’t have to be a life ended.

Craig resident Tom Cramer, who used meth for 12 years, said hope begins the minute an addict walks away from the drug.

Cramer is now clean.

“There is hope,” he said. “And when I was using, I didn’t think there was any.”

COMA spokesman Tim Martin said the community can help fight the meth problem through actions as simple as attending a forum such as Thursday’s.

“You being here and showing your support means so much to so many people in this community,” Martin said.

Dunckley said COMA is listening to new ideas about how to combat meth and asked the public for future input.

The organization won’t be satisfied until it answers the question it hasn’t thus far, she said.

“We have not found the way to stop it,” Dunckley said.

Joshua Roberts can be reached at 824-7031, ext. 210, or jroberts@craigdailypress.com.