METH'S HOLD ON STREETS GROWS IN EDMONTON

High Use Reported Among Inner City Youths, Prostitutes

It's just before 11 a.m. when Christine emerges from Mama B's.

She begins a new sentence before the old one is finished. She's
fidgety and plays with an MP3 player in her hands.

"There's some good songs on it -- I was up all night listening," she
says excitedly.

Christine is high on crystal meth.

She spent the night at Mama B's, a ramshackle flophouse in Edmonton's
downtown that's a magnet for drug users who go there to get high or
to "crash and burn" when they begin coming down from a lengthy meth binge.

Although numbers are hard to come by, organizations surveyed in a
2003 crystal meth study commissioned by the City of Edmonton reported
widespread use among inner-city street youths and increasing
addiction among women in the sex trade.

Three agencies that work with street youths estimated 80 per cent of
their clients use crystal meth and said that it has become the drug of choice.

At 18, Christine falls squarely within the 15-to-25 age group
identified as the core users of crystal meth in Edmonton.

At first glance, Christine doesn't have the haggard look of a
longtime meth addict. She is slender -- but not overly thin -- and
her long, curly brown hair falls neatly over her shoulders.

A closer look behind Christine's sunglasses, however, reveals an ugly
consequence of her meth use.

One of Christine's eyes is badly infected from a mishap while
breaking into a car when she was high. The story isn't completely
clear, but it sounds as if a shard of glass from the car's window
flew into her eye when she smashed it with a flathead screwdriver.

Christine is on the way to an appointment at an eye clinic, and the
prognosis isn't good.

After hurting her eye, Christine crashed for almost three days before
seeking medical attention.

Her infection has lingered because of continued neglect, and what was
once a 50-50 chance of saving her eye has dwindled significantly.

Christine may lose an eye. Others have lost their homes. Some have
lost their lives.

Time will tell what toll drug addiction will take on those wandering
the streets, lanes and parkades of downtown Edmonton looking for
their next hit -- some selling their bodies to pay for it.

The scene outside a bar on 101st Street isn't unlike the brisk crack
cocaine trade in Calgary's East Village; people standing around are
greeted by others who walk up, quickly exchange a few words and trade
their illegal goods in a nonchalant handoff before parting.

More and more, Edmonton police are turning up "jib," the preferred
street name for meth in the city's drug subculture. Although crack
cocaine is still the most prevalent street drug, meth is cheap -- a
sign it's readily available.

The price, says acting Staff Sgt. Darcy Strang of the Edmonton Police
Service drug unit, has dropped to $50 a gram from $260 a few years ago.

"That would indicate to me that there's more out there," he says.

Crystal meth use has a foothold among the city's prostitutes,
described in the 2003 study as "a small proportion but increasing."

"Crack is a huge problem here for people on the street and meth is
working its way up to being just as bad," says JoAnn McCartney of the
Prostitution Awareness and Action Foundation of Edmonton.

The link between drugs and the sex trade is long-standing.

Women are often recruited with drugs, become addicted and then have
to sell sex to pay for what they've consumed. The cycle continues as
the women get high to escape the reality of their situation.

What worries McCartney is the degree of violence she has seen since
meth became more prevalent.

"(Prostitutes) are starting to attack people, and the johns are
attacking the women," says McCartney, a retired Edmonton cop with a
decade of experience in the vice unit.

"It's a very rare thing for me to be afraid out there, but there have
been a few times when I've been afraid."

Back at Mama B's, the job of making sure Christine gets to her eye
appointment falls on Wes.

Wes, who doesn't want his last name published, is a recovering meth
addict who has been clean for nine days.

"The best nine days of my life," he says.

Wes, 24, is one of approximately 200 high-risk youths being helped by
the iHuman Youth Society, which uses some of its more senior youths
to mentor others. Even though Wes is in need of help himself, he is
also responsible for doing what he can for others.

Shepherding other youths to and from doctor's appointments is a long
way from Wes's past as a drug dealer.

"I've been shot at and shot," says Wes, who pulls down the collar of
his shirt to reveal a round, nickel-sized scar just below his collarbone.

Wes was in a car delivering drugs when someone opened fire on the
vehicle. The bullet went through the windshield and struck him.

It turned out the "customer" was another dealer who wanted to teach
Wes a lesson for doing business in his neighbourhood.

"It was a setup. When you go into someone else's territory, they're
bound to get pissed off," he says.

The wound wasn't life-threatening, and Wes shrugs it off now as "nothing."

It would be easy to dismiss the statement as bravado if Wes hadn't
gone on to do far worse things to himself.

"Believe it or not, I used to be a Bible thumper," he says.

After an upbringing delivered by a succession of Christian foster
parents, Wes began his fall from grace after moving in with a cousin
who was into drugs.

At first, Wes ignored the drug use and constant flow of people coming
and going, but the lure of easy money proved too much.

"We basically started a drug den," says Wes.

Wes liked making money selling drugs, but was wary of getting hooked
on crystal meth so he avoided trying it.

His resolve broke down late one night at a club, when a friend
offered him a meth pick-me-up.

"I tried it, and basically, it never stopped," he says.

"I had a condo, a car and I thought things were pretty easy. Within
two months after I started using, it was all gone."

While it's easy for Wes to see now that he had lost everything, when
he was using meth, he felt confident -- like he was "big time."

"You never felt afraid," he adds, saying meth-fuelled courage was the
catalyst for many brawls.

Two things shook Wes free of his delusion: the death of his sister
from a drug overdose, and finding iHuman.

Wes' sister died last year after injecting "T's & R's" -- a mixture
of the painkiller Talwin and the stimulant Ritalin that produces a
high similar to the effect of heroin mixed with cocaine.

"I realized what I was doing to myself was slow suicide," he says.

By this time, Wes was living on the streets. He discovered iHuman's
former building on 101st St. almost by accident -- seeing its
graffiti-covered exterior, Wes thought it was a crash-and-burn place.

What he found inside was much more: a professional-grade recording
studio, an art studio where youths could paint, and space to write
and rehearse drama.

The graffiti on the outside of the building wasn't vandalism: it was
the product of art therapy iHuman uses as a way of getting street
youths to learn to relate to themselves and others.

Wes says he had low self-esteem that prevented him from nurturing a
secret desire to write songs.

Shortly after going to iHuman, Wes recorded a hip-hop song that is
now included on a compilation CD produced by the centre.

It was a positive experience, but success for Wes didn't come overnight.

He continued using meth, though he gradually began using less. There
was a failed stint at one treatment centre, but Wes continued to get
support -- iHuman believes in harm reduction and doesn't demand abstinence.

Wes recently entered a treatment centre outside of Edmonton. Almost a
month has passed, and he is still clean.

"I credit iHuman with saving my life. They allowed me to be who I
was," he says.

Later in the day, Wes and another of iHuman's mentors, Gabe Rodgers,
meet up with Wallis Kendal, an artist and social activist who helped
found the organization six years ago.

Rodgers, 21, greets Kendal with a stream of profanity, but it's meant
in the most affectionate way possible.

And even if Rodgers drops the occasional F-bomb, it's a far cry from
what she used to be like.

"Gabrielle was impossible," Kendal says.

When she first showed up at iHuman, staff would clear out rooms to
avoid her rages. They wanted to bar her -- an unprecedented step
Kendal never agreed to.

Rodgers describes herself as a "crazy, violent, psychotic person"
during her years on the street.

In her mid-teens, she gravitated there after running away from group homes.

Smoking marijuana and drinking progressed to smoking meth when her
peers started.

"I tried it, and instantly I was addicted," she says.

"It does something to your brain and makes you want to take more."

It also made Rodgers violent. She fought with others, she battled
with mall security guards who would try to roust her and her loitering friends.

"I started to hate. I'd pick fights and I didn't know why," she says.

She needed more and more meth to get high. Rodgers estimates she was
using up to 3.5 grams a day. At around this time, she started going
to after-hours clubs and selling jib to make extra cash.

Binges lasted for days; the longest almost two weeks.

"I don't really remember the last couple of days," she says.

Like many meth addicts with racing minds and boundless energy,
Rodgers turned to identity theft to fund her addiction.

Two years ago, Edmonton police arrested her trying to cash a $25,000
student loan cheque stolen from a Grant MacEwan College student.

The incident didn't scare her straight, but a subsequent three-month
stint behind bars for breaching her conditions did and she decided to
seek treatment.

Next year, Rodgers will attend MacEwan for real, enrolled in the
theatre arts program. Acting is a talent she discovered through
iHuman, and Rodgers says she's grateful Kendal allowed her to keep coming back.

"He's one in a million. If you call him at three in the morning,
he'll be there," she says.

Spend a few hours with Kendal, and you realize it's true -- his
cellphone is always on, and he's almost always on it.

IHuman's landlord recently decided it wanted to redevelop the
building it sits on, a move that rendered the organization homeless
at the end of October.

The building crunch and the lack of a solid budget may spell the
demise of iHuman in its present form, but for now Kendal presses on,
operating mainly out of his car.

He logs 70 to 80 hours a week, ferrying kids to and from treatment,
bailing them out of jail, taking them to court and helping them with
basic errands to keep their lives on track.

It's a task often performed with a carload of loud, swearing teens
who sometimes can't resist shouting at passersby as Kendal navigates
his Toyota through the streets of Edmonton.

"My car is a battleground sometimes," Kendal jokes as he arrives at a
fast-food joint to buy lunch for two of his hungry charges.

Kendal says if he tolerates more than many would, it's because he's
dealing with youths who have nowhere else to turn after running afoul
of "zero tolerance" policies elsewhere in the system.

"They're extremely creative and talented. The problem is, they're
self-medicating (with drugs)," he says.

"You have to be prepared to go a different avenue."

Veronica Soares wants her kids back, but her cravings for crystal
meth have proven stronger.

Soares, 22, is the mother of two young girls in foster care. The
youngest was taken from her at the hospital shortly after she was
born only a month ago.

The older girl, who is a year old, was born with underdeveloped
muscles and needs physiotherapy.

"That's from me, obviously," Soares says, casting her eyes downward.

Soares has been addicted to crystal meth for two years, and admits it
was difficult to stop at the three-month mark of her most recent pregnancy.

"I was skin and bones and my hair was falling out in chunks. The
pregnancy didn't matter to me -- it was all about the drug," she
says, adding that a stint in a detoxification program then likely
saved her life.

Soares claims having custody of her children would provide an
incentive to quit taking meth. But the system doesn't work that way,
and Soares can't quite grasp that fact.

It's an addict's logic.

"It's hard. Not having them with me is killing me. I know if I had
them with me, I would not be thinking of doing dope," she says.

"The judges don't know that. I want to be off this s--t."

Soares hasn't used meth in two days, though not by design. The street
supply in Edmonton has temporarily dried up, and Soares readily
admits she would have gotten high if she had been able to score some.

"Oh yeah -- guaranteed," she says.

Soares says her boyfriend, who fathered her two daughters, can
usually be relied upon to get drugs, but he was arrested and is still
in custody.

She debates whether to go into detox again, and concludes she may as
well if her boyfriend isn't able to get bail.

If she ever succeeds in kicking her meth addiction, Soares doesn't
yet know what she'll tell her daughters about the hardships they
endured because of it.

"I think about it, but every time I think about it, I didn't know
what I'll say," she says.

Soares did indeed go to detox and is now awaiting a spot in a
treatment program.

In the meantime, she remains clean and is living temporarily in a
sober household outside of Edmonton.

"We'll never give up," Kendal says.

"If it takes five times, we're prepared."

Where to Get Help

Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission

aadac.com

iHuman Youth Society

ihuman.org

Alberta Adolescent Recovery Centre

aarc.ab.ca

crystalrecovery.com

Meth Timeline

- - 1887: A German scientist synthesizes amphetamine for the first time.

- - 1919: A more potent derivative -- methamphetamine -- is synthesized
in Japan. Neither drug has a practical application.

- - 1920s: Western scientists discover the benefits of ephedra, a
shrub-like evergreen used in traditional Chinese remedies, most
commonly as a decongestant.

- - 1927: Demand for ephedra soars, sparking a search for a synthetic
substitute for its active ingredients, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.
Researcher Gordon Alles experiments with methamphetamine and
discovers its suitability.

- - 1930s: Amphetamine is sold in the U.S. under the trade name
Benzedrine as an over-the-counter inhaler for asthma and nasal
congestion. Non-sufferers discover the stimulant properties and begin
abusing it.

- - Second World War: Axis and Allied countries administer amphetamines
to soldiers to counter battle fatigue. After the war, Japan's
leftover military stockpiles of meth make their way into the civilian
population and create widespread addiction.

- - 1950s and 60s: Amphetamine-based drugs become a popular treatment
for a wide range of conditions. Prescription tablets are dispensed
for obesity and depression.

- - 1967: 31 million prescriptions are written in the U.S. Non-medical
use and abuse grows. Students take "speed" to cram all night for
exams, long-haul truckers take it to prolong their hours behind the
wheel and athletes use it for a competitive edge. - Early 1970s: The
last non-prescription inhaler containing amphetamine is taken off the
market as governments also curtail meth's prescription availability
because of its addictive qualities and questionable benefits. By this
time, its popularity as a street drug spawns speed production by
organized criminals.

- - 1970s to mid-1980s: Biker gangs emerge as the main makers of
"crank" -- so-called because it is sometimes concealed in motorcycle
crankcases. Their role declines as the U.S. government begins
restricting the main precursor chemical used in the process,
phenyl-2-propanone.

- - Mid-1980s: Meth made from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine begins
arriving in Hawaii and the U.S. west coast from Asia. This process is
quicker and produces purer meth that can be crystallized -- and
easily smoked. Usage explodes, much like when a smokable form of
cocaine -- crack -- hit the streets.