'HE WAS IN HELL,' SAYS MOM WHO LOST HER BOY

Grieving Mother Tells Of Doomed Attempt To Get Treatment For Son

Kerry Jackson knows the evil power of crystal meth. The toxic drug
drove her son to his death at the age of 26, and now she fights to
save others from the same hell that took her only child.

To that end, despite her grief, Jackson agreed to take part in a
recently produced video, Death by Jib, a stark, 18-minute chronicle of
the horrors of meth.

In it, she plays the recorded phone message her son, Ryan, left on her
answering machine just weeks before his death.

"Hey, Mom. You must be worried sick about me," says the strained,
plaintive voice on the tape. "Please don't be worried. I'm fine . . .
I'm looking to get balanced really fast. I love you, Mom . . .
[tears]. You don't have to worry any more. We can go for a walk on the
beach."

On the night of Jan. 13, 2002, Ryan Jackson was seen balancing on a
railing on the northeast side of Vancouver's Cambie Street Bridge.

A passerby tried to talk him down. Ryan told her he was breaking up
inside "on a cellular level." He asked: "Is it going to hurt?" then
swan-dived to his death on the concrete below.

Ryan had been diagnosed with drug-induced bipolar disorder --
otherwise known as manic-

depressive illness -- and had been in and out of psychiatric wards
four times in 10 months.

But as with many similar victims, he refused to accept that he was ill
and had stopped taking his medications.

A post-mortem exam showed he had been eating carbon and ground-up
quartz. His mother believes he was trying to soak up the drugs in his
system.

"He was in hell," she says. "I didn't see any way out for him."

Jackson taped her son's phone messages in a desperate attempt to
convince authorities he posed a danger to himself and others and
should be detained, even against his will.

"He was psychotic, talking gibberish, nonsense, all day," she recalls
of a lunch date in 2001.

As they sat together on the beach at English Bay, Ryan spun wild
fantasies of being trained as a ninja in Japan.

On their way home, his distraught mother stopped the car at a gas
station and called for Car 87 -- the Vancouver police vehicle that is
tasked with dealing with the mentally ill.

She was told it would take three to four hours for the car to get
there. By the time it arrived, Ryan's psychosis had retreated.

"He was himself again, lucid and talking straight," Jackson
says.

Car 87 did not take her son.

On a later occasion, Ryan was detained by police in Chilliwack while
behaving erratically and was admitted to a psychiatric ward.

On his release, he returned to his lodgings in Burnaby to find that
everything he owned had been stolen.

Unable to deal with such setbacks, his life spiralled further out of
control.

He moved into a series of single-room-only hotels. The key to his last
hotel room was in his pocket when he died.

Ryan was no thief. He found other ways to get money.

His mother suspects he sold himself.

"He was a good boy; he didn't want to hurt others. He really had no
other choice but to become a victim of the street," she says.

Jackson had done what she could. But she could not force her son to
accept treatment.

She now thinks parents in her situation should be able to force their
adult children into rehab, even against their will.

She's also convinced that the best way to save other children from
falling into the addiction trap is through early education.

Parents need to be taught how to recognize giveaway traits -- things
like Ryan Jackson's impulsive behaviour and his tendency to make
unsound decisions.

Jackson is taking her story public in the hope that others may be able
to help in developing a website dedicated to early education and
prevention efforts.