LOOKING FOR THE BEST PRACTICES IN FIGHTING METH

After one of the city's public forums on the dangers of crystal meth,
a woman approached City councillor Sharon Gaetz in the parking lot,
asking for help for her addicted son.

The now all-too-familiar story of a family being torn apart by meth
hit the chair of the city's public safety committee like a ton of
bricks. The distraught mom told Gaetz her son was no longer the boy
she once knew after getting involved with hard drugs. She was
desperate for help and didn't know where to turn. Her boy had lost
weight, and wasn't sleeping much as he was drawn inexorably into the
world of meth.

"As a mother that really touched me," Gaetz said. "As parents we all
think we're impervious to the effects of drugs, and we teach our
children well, but it can and it does happen. I felt sad. I know what
it's like to lose a kid, but I would hate to lose a kid to drugs."

The 115-page report, 'Responding to the Dangers of Methamphetamine: Towards
Informed Practices' was received by city council recently, and is being
printed and sent out to 185 municipalities across B.C., courtesy of the City
of Chilliwack.

The new meth report was commissioned by the city in partnership with
the UCFV-based Centre for Criminal Justice Research and BC Centre for
Social Responsibility. It was written by criminology researcher Darryl
Plecas, and colleagues Amanda McCormick and Irwin Cohen, and provides
up-to-date information about world-wide best practices in fighting
meth, as well as offering direction to communities seeking to draft
their own action plans.

The research initiative was commissioned around the same time the
province starting intensively funding anti-meth programs and
initiatives to the tune of $17 million, Gaetz said.

"What happened was that we concentrated on education about crystal
meth and its effects," she said. "Clearly there's still more we have
to do in the area of education and awareness."

A heavier than average use of crystal meth is being documented in
street youth, as well as in gay or transgender communities, Gaetz said.

The new report is "a workbook for communities" emphasizing more
education, enforcement, and help for those struggling with the impacts
of meth, and their families.

"The next step is for us to study the recommendations and bring
forward a direction for Chilliwack to go in," Gaetz said.

One aspect noted in the report was that methamphetamine was quite
"regionalized" and that it often pops up to torment a community near
where it's produced. Meth is dead cheap, easy to make and sneaky,
because it can often be found in ecstasy, too, meaning that some youth
end up addicted to meth without knowing they'd come into contact with
it.

"At first it seems like it's helping some people, giving them energy
to work maybe a second job or something, but then it takes its
horrible toll," she said. "They don't realize the treadmill they're
embarking on."

The meth report cites a Pacific Community Resources study from 2002
surveying 1,936 youth aged 12 to 24 in the Lower Mainland. Of this
sample, a whopping 18.7 per cent reported they had tried crystal meth.

"It was a startling and troubling statistic for me," Gaetz underlined.
"That means almost one in five young people had tried it."

And on top of that, about 8 per cent had done crystal meth in the last
month according to that same sample, and many were young teenagers.

"We know there was a real problem developing in our community, but has
it decreased in recent years? We don't know yet," Gaetz said.

A Crystal Meth sub-committee is being set up under the aegis of the
public safety committee to come up with a made-in-Chilliwack plan.

One idea Gaetz is interested in exploring is legislation that would
protect "drug-endangered children" found in meth labs.

"The residual chemicals can affect brain function and the respiratory
system," she added. "Living in a meth lab can become normalized for
some kids, which is truly heart-breaking. They have the right to grow
up in a drug-free environment. I think the community needs to look
after its kids."

Stay tuned for the next article on the latest meth report in an
upcoming edition of the Progress, focusing on the implications of the
research and recommendations.