CRYSTAL CALLED THE 'DRUG OF CHOICE' IN SURREY

Fighting Back: A Lower Mainland Community Fights The Meth Scourge

One B.C. community's unique approach to tackling crystal methamphetamine is
now a movie -- with captive audiences as far away as Maui.

Life or Meth: A Community Takes Action documents how Maple Ridge embarked
on a multi-partner anti-meth movement. The 41-minute film is a how-to guide
for other towns facing the wide range of issues associated with drug.

Even though the rough cut of the film has only just been finished, it's
already in demand.

"We're getting calls from all over the province," says Mary Robson, who
spearheaded the movement as president of the Meadowridge Rotary club.

Robson and her husband, Gordy Robson, the film's producer, recently showed
it to a Rotary club in Maui. Hawaii has a huge problem with meth, and five
Rotary clubs in Maui are now trying to echo what's happening in Maple Ridge.

Among local communities calling for help from Maple Ridge are Mission,
Langley, Richmond, Creston, Campbell River and Surrey.

The methamphetamine problem in Surrey is acute, says RCMP Const. Marc Searle.

"It is the drug of choice," he says. The drug is linked to a variety of
crimes and is showing up all across the city in every demographic.

Limiting the damage from meth comes down to a combination of education,
prevention and enforcement, Searle says -- exactly the approach now under
way in Maple Ridge. The Life or Meth movement began in the summer of 2004
after a Salvation Army shelter in Maple Ridge was flooded by the homeless.

The majority of the approximately 400 men and women living rough there were
addicted to meth.

Mary Robson soon figured out that Maple Ridge didn't have a problem with
homelessness; it had a problem with crystal meth.

"When somebody says somebody should do something . . . quite often you're
that somebody and you should just do it," she says in the film.

Robson and her Rotary colleagues called together local businesses, media,
health-care providers and social-service organizations to come up with a plan.

Life or Meth emerged. In March of 2005, the community became the first in
Canada to roll out the Meth Watch program, which educates store owners and
employees about how to spot someone buying the ingredients that are used to
manufacture meth.

Among the many sub-groups, there's a team that works with the local paper
on public awareness and an education group active in schools. The city is
on board with new bylaws penalizing property owners for allowing labs in
their rental homes, and the RCMP targeted meth and began to lobby local
Crown counsel to push for tougher sentences.

The initiative also extended to the justice system, where a team is
watching and analyzing meth-related court cases to track sentencing trends.

- - For more information about Life or Meth in Maple Ridge, go to
www.crystalmethtaskforce.com

- - To order a copy of the film, e-mail maryrobson@robsonandassoc.com