COUNSELLORS SEE RETURN OF OLD FOE

For some teens and young adults, vices such as drinking, puffing on
cigarettes and smoking dope isn't enough.

For many young people in Sask-atchewan, crystal meth has become the fad drug
of choice to top off their roster of chemical coping strategies.

According to the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey, four per cent of
Sask-atchewan residents aged 15 or older have tried speed or an equivalent
drug, including meth, in their lifetime. In comparison, 41 per cent of the
same group report they have tried marijuana at least once, and 78.2 per cent
say they currently drink alcohol.

But another study, conducted by the Youth Addictions Project in Saskatoon,
showed about 19 per cent of 12- to 24-year-olds in the city have tried
crystal meth.

"This is actually the fourth wave of something we've seen like crystal
meth," said Michelle Robson, manager of clinical services with Community
Addictions Services in Saskatoon. "There was speed in the '70s -- crank they
called it at that time. In the '80s it was crack cocaine, in the '90s it was
the club drugs, ecstasy and GHB and all of that. Now we're seeing this wave.
And all those drugs in all of those decades have been kind of the fourth
used drug."

Although police say crystal meth is being used by people from all walks of
life in Saskatchewan, addictions counsellors say they're seeing mostly
young, white, middle- and upper-class youths and adults walking through
their doors. They look thin, pale and waxy, with lesions on their skin and
dark circles under their eyes from abusing a drug that gives them a boost of
seemingly endless energy and keeps them awake for days.

Saskatoon addictions counsellors first began to see crystal meth users about
three to four years ago, Robson said. At first, the users were usually young
Native males.

"It really started to kind of hit the community's radar about a year ago and
I think it morphed into different areas of our community and that's when we
started to see young adults about the 17-24 age group. It's pretty
consistent within that age group since then, and white middle-class kids,
primarily young people."

In La Ronge, Wayne Kuffner, a clinical supervisor for addictions in the
Mamawetan Churchill River Regional Health Authority, says the few meth users
they have seen are young -- between 14 and 17 years of age.

In Regina, youth addictions counsellor Don Fitzsimmons first saw patients
using crystal meth about a year ago. Typically, kids who were already
dabbling in other drugs were trying meth on for size, he said. In some
cases, teens and young adults were buying a drug they thought was ecstasy
and turned out to be crystal meth.

"The presentation of their symptoms was all wrong, then we knew something
was going on," Fitzsimmons said.

Six months ago, a rash of methamphetamine cases showed up in teens in the
northwestern part of Regina, centred around a high school in a middle-class
neighbourhood.

Kids and young adults can get meth at school, from friends, from houses
where it's sold by adults, or on the street, the counsellors say.

What surprises Fitzsimmons is what he hears from more hardened young people
- -- those in custody or on Regina's streets, whom he calls the "auto theft
bunch." They're not that interested in dabbling in the drug, he said,
perhaps because meth is so addictive and can transform lives so quickly.

"They're staying right away from this," he said. "I just think that they
don't like being that far out of control."

'INSANELY PLEASANT' DRUG

People who start smoking crystal meth -- and later may snort or inject it --
often can't stop.

"It's so outstandingly fun," Fitzsimmons said with a chuckle. "It's insanely
pleasant. This drug is particularly seductive because it's just incredible.
The pursuit of redoing that original experience is how the addiction gets
ingrained."

The high hits faster than cocaine and can last 10 times as long.

"The kids just love it," Fitzsimmons said. "I had one boy who was in custody
. . . and he said, 'Don, if there's was a grain of this drug somewhere in
this room, I would tear you apart and anybody else just to get to it.' "

Since his daughter Kelly's crystal meth addiction became public in December,
Saskatoon Northwest MLA Ted Merriman has become a magnet for parents looking
for an ear or advice on what to do about their own child's methamphetamine
use.

"Pretty much all the cases are the same," said Merriman. "Change the name of
the kid, change the age or the sex, but the pattern is identical from start
to finish."

He also says it's not clean kids who are plunging into meth, but pot smokers
and drinkers who are looking to up the ante.

"A lot of them have had issues with self-esteem, maybe been bullied, maybe
been sexually abused," said Merriman, a Saskatchewan Party MLA.

"There's usually a trigger in there that started them. The difference with
crystal meth is, once they're on that, there's a deterioration."

The downward spiral usually entails rapid, unexplainable weight loss,
paranoia and aggression toward family members.

When middle-class kids get hooked on meth, parents with well-padded bank
accounts sometimes inadvertently allow the habit to continue, Merriman said.

"Do you want them living on the street? No, so you put them in an
apartment," he said.

"They don't have food so you buy them food. All of that's enabling. They're
not spending their money on food, they're spending yours, and they're
spending yours on drugs."

One man who called Merriman for help said his child has squeezed him for
$200,000 during the last decade.

The stereotype that drugs only run rampant in low-income communities is a
fallacy, Merriman said.

"I think it's just a symptom of you don't think it's going to happen to you.
Our kids have had more opportunities, (and are) spoiled maybe in turn," he
said. "And they are the ones with the disposable income."

The drug's price -- about $10 a point, or 10th of a gram, in urban centres,
and up to $30 a point in rural areas -- makes it accessible to young people,
said Robson, the Saskatoon addictions counsellor.

The quick high that sets in about 10 minutes after users bring the rolling
papers to their lips is what appeals to young people, she said.

"We live in an instant world, a fast-food world, an instant fix world. So
they're going to gravitate towards that," she said.

"More complex is that it's hitting a component of our community that usually
doesn't have a lot of problems with drugs or people don't recognize that
they have problems with drugs," Robson said.

USERS STICK TOGETHER

There's also two kinds of users, she said -- the binge users who stay up for
days until they crash, and the habitual users who wean themselves off meth
nightly so they can sleep.

Users also often stick together, she said.

"They have their own language and they have their own culture around this
drug," Robson said.

Meth addicts may develop lesions on their skin as the drug seeps out, she
said, and while hallucinating, they feel as if bugs are crawling under their
skin. Their behaviour becomes obsessive and they focus on repetitive tasks,
such as picking at the lesions on their skin.

To an addict, the side-effects are irrelevant compared to the euphoria they
get from the drug, she said.

In Saskatoon, Robson is already starting to see meth use slow down among
addicts because of the negative effect it has on users.

"I think it's because of all the information and light shone on it and the
focus that it's had in the last year," she said.

"It's starting to get a bad rep on the street and so that speaks highly as
well."