B.C. MUST TAKE STEPS TO TACKLE THE CRYSTAL METH MENACE THAT IS RAVAGING OUR YOUNG

Mark describes himself as a "small-town farm boy who got involved with the
wrong crowd" when he came to live in Vancouver. The very first time he
tried crystal meth he was hooked. He stayed high for a year.

There followed three voluntary admissions to hospital and one attempted
suicide. On his third trip to the hospital, he was literally in a frenzy.
"I sat for eight hours and no one paid any attention. I thought someone was
trying to kill me," he said.

Mark is one of many readers who contacted The Province last week in
response to our series by reporter Matthew Ramsey on the menace of crystal
meth.

We knew we had a problem out there. But it appears to be even greater than
we had believed possible. Health professionals talk in terms of "thousands"
of addicts.

"It's like no other drug we've ever seen," says Lorinda Strang, admissions
director at the privately run Orchard Recovery Centre on Bowen Island.
"Before you can blink an eye, you're addicted."

It's the young who are drawn to this super-stimulant. "You can stay up all
night and feel like a million bucks," one said.

What's not so apparent is the dreadful price to be paid. This drug drags
its victims down into a dark, private hell. In clinical terms, they turn
psychotic.

What's to be done? In a series of Province-organized community forums
starting Tuesday night in Kamloops, health workers, police, former addicts
and you, our readers, will look for answers.

Meth addicts often are quite incapable of making rational decisions.

But, at the moment, parents are unable to force children to get treatment,
unless they present a clear danger to themselves or others.

This means that a meth addict in a state of psychosis can be tasered and
handcuffed by police, delivered to hospital and, within an hour, be back on
the street.

In Alberta, a change to the law means parents will be able to get minors
admitted for treatment with or without their permission.

The government in B.C. should be looking to do the same.

Hospitals must be enabled to provide the physical resources -- dedicated
beds for patients with drug-induced psychosis.

Either we act now, or we risk watching a generation of our youth suffer the
nightmare of permanent brain damage.