THE WEIGHT OF ONE DRUG

Like many young women, Mary sought more from life. She craved the
beauty and curves of the supermodels she saw plastered all over
magazines and store ads. She desperately wanted to keep her youthful
looks, and the fun lifestyle that came with youth.

But Mary was also a smart girl. She had heard all the parental drug
speeches years ago, and aside from smoking pot and trying cocaine
once before, she generally steered clear of drugs.

"But drugs always interested me," said the now 35-year-old.

It was about 10 years ago that the allure of drugs got to Mary when
she tried ecstasy at a rave with her friend.

Before she knew it she was "trying" crystal meth.

"We always saw it as the dirty drug and we tried it once and didn't like it."

But they figured that perhaps they had just gotten a bad batch and
the next hit might be better.

"We started out saying we'd only do it Friday and Saturday nights.
Then we said Friday, Saturday and Monday, but just those days.

"But then Monday turned to Tuesday and Tuesday turned to Wednesday
and soon we were doing it almost every day of the week.

"Then it turned to partying with it, to staying up all night by myself on it."

It was such a delightful drug, Mary recalls.

"It was so cheap and it's so easy to get," said Mary, who generally
snorted and ate meth to get her high. "Nothing compared to crystal meth."

And best of all, and the prime reason she was so attached to meth,
was to achieve that model-thin body. Within a month Mary went from
135 pounds to 102.

"You can pig out on McDonald's all you want and never gain a pound.

"And," she adds, "you can be functional on it.

"Because you can hide it so well, I held a steady job," said Mary.

All the while Mary convinced herself that because she didn't smoke
the drug, because she didn't want to wreck her teeth, she was doing
it the right way.

"You convince yourself that you're the good addict and if everybody
did it this way it would be OK."

Looking back at her past use, Mary now knows there is no good that
comes from crystal meth, and there is no good way of doing drugs.

"We were idiots. We were just as bad as everybody else."

Mary could tell that her body was starting to shut down and that's
when she knew she had to kick her habit.

"I just said to my girlfriend, 'this is not the way I want to die.'"

Now Mary, who has been able to regain most of her weight back, deals
with kidney problems, shingles, and the scars from picking at her
skin due to the paranoia that makes crystal meth users feel like
there are bugs crawling under their skin.

"You'd see stuff on your face that's not there. I'd sit in the
bathroom and pick, pick, pick, pick until I was bleeding and then
move to another area to pick."

Now that she is clean, Mary is glad to be free of the addictive chain
of crystal meth that gripped her life.

And unlike how she first thought crystal meth was just a dirty drug,
Mary now sees that it reaches all corners of society.

"It's not just your hookers or your regular skid row drug addicts."

And she fears what it will do to the North Okanagan.

"It will get here and it will be worse than crack, I'm sure of it."