ATTACKING A DEADLY DRUG

Fearless Probe Into Crystal Meth Lays Out No-Nonsense Strategies

If Colleen Klein has a single outstanding legacy from her tenure as
premier's wife, it is as the driving force behind the Premier's Task
Force on Crystal Meth. The task force issued its report this week, and
its battle strategy for the war on crystal meth is brilliant and
awe-inspiring.

The report does not waste a minute on meaningless jargon or
bureaucratese. Uncluttered by political slant or ideology, it gets
right to the point, not only in its starkly vivid descriptions of the
extent of Alberta's crystal meth problem, but in all 83
recommendations as to solutions.

Calling for an integrative approach to dealing with the pernicious
scourge of crystal meth, it stunningly weaves into that approach the
justice system, child welfare organizations, law enforcement,
education, treatment and community involvement.

The facts are grim. For example, to get around drug tests, workers in
Fort McMurray are substituting synthetic urine, which is available in
town and on the Internet. Growing numbers of employees are using
crystal meth because it has a shorter transit time through the body
and can be used on days off with less fear of discovery than
marijuana. Despite the threat drugs pose to jobsite safety and
productivity, task force members noted that oilsands and forestry
employers were conspicuously absent from the consultations they held.

For every aspect of the crystal meth problem, the task force
recommends a multi-pronged approach that mercilessly batters it from
every possible angle.

"No human being should be putting fertilizer, iodine, Drano and
battery acid, all mixed together with a little ephedrine, into their
system," an anonymous participant told a task force hearing.

To this end, the task force recommends drug courts for users and
stiffer sentences for traffickers, a seamless progression from detox
to treatment to after-care that adds 300 new beds provincewide to
increase access so no user has a time gap in which to relapse between
one phase and the next. It urgently recommends the recruiting of staff
to ensure quality of care around the clock and in rural areas, and the
need for concurrent treatment of mental health problems that may be
the underlying cause for drug abuse.

With crystal meth "readily available" in Calgary, recommendations are
for teens caught with drugs in school to have mandatory referral to
addictions counsellors, increased street outreach workers for homeless
youth, mentors for post-treatment and special drug undercover street
teams, and education campaigns for farmers to teach them to keep
fertilizers and other chemicals secure from thieves who use them in
cooking crystal meth.

Dan MacLennan, former president of the Alberta Union of Provincial
Employees and a task force member, said no cost estimates were
released. Implementing all the recommendations would be a
multimillion-dollar investment, so government departments, working
co-operatively with addiction experts and law enforcement agencies,
need to draw up a list of priorities and economize by expanding
services, rather than reinventing or duplicating them.

Crystal meth is unequalled in the destructive potential it has on
young lives. This report is a clarion call for action and a
comprehensive blueprint for an integrated strategy. It should not be
left, as have so many other reports, to moulder on a shelf.