CRYSTAL METH TAKES SPARKLE OUT OF TEEN'S EYES

Her daughter's eyes are all sparkle and joy. "And blue," her mother
says. "She has blue-blue eyes.

"You can tell when she's been using (the drug). Her eyes lose all
their colour. They turn almost silver."

The effects of crystal meth don't end there. It rots the teeth and
hollows the cheeks. It leaves a girl in the perfume of youth with a
pissy smell of ammonia.

It takes a 17-year-old who is all fun and laughter and turns her into
a froth of anger, inciting her to fits of rage at the slightest
provocation; has her grabbing her older sister by the throat and
choking hard because no, no she can't wait five more minutes to use
the computer. I need it right . . . freaking . . . NOW!

For a few hours, a hit of meth lifts her up. Then for weeks it kicks
her down and drags her about. It has her sleeping with the pigeons
under the bridge and has her walking the streets in the cold.

She lies to friends. She steals from family.

Meth takes everything and leaves nothing. It consumes her.

"I'm losing my daughter to that drug," her mother Terri says.

At first, Terri and her husband Scott blamed themselves. They wondered
what they could have done differently.

"We're a typical family," Terri says. "We went on family holidays and
followed our children all over the province cheering them on in
whatever activity they were in."

They encouraged and supported their daughters, but disciplined them,
too. The girls had curfew. They were taught right from wrong.

"We really believed we were doing all the right things," Terri
says.

Sometimes, she learned, good kids make bad choices. She says what has
happened to them could happen to any family. Look around, she says.
Meth is everywhere.

"It's huge," she says. "It's not just the low-income families or the
dysfunctional families. It doesn't matter if you're a person of means
or no means. It's all over the community and it's not going away."

Last June, her daughter was arrested for possession of crystal meth.
There was hope in the family this was the end of the darkness for them.

No more deceit, and they had a whole catalogue of things around the
house which had gone missing, from garden tools to clothes to a camera
and a stack of CDs. Either their daughter was swiping these things or
it was one of her friends; either way, all of it was presumably hawked
to support their habit. There'd be no more of that.

There'd be no more days of their daughter gone missing, and they were
long days of non-stop worry. When she finally phoned home it was at
the deepest, darkest hours of night. Sometimes she phoned and didn't
say anything. There was only silence at the other end. It got to the
point where sometimes they just let it ring.

Prior to their daughter's arrest, Terri and Scott had taken an
eight-week program for parents of drug abusers. They had urged her to
get help as well.

"She was very defiant and made it quite clear that she did not need
any help from us or anyone else for that matter," Terri says.
"Legally, she was too old to be forced (by us) into rehab and too
young to go into other centres."

With her arrest in June, things would change.

She was given a choice by the authorities: She could either plead
guilty and go through mediation, or she could go to trial. She chose
mediation. She was placed in her parent's custody. Three days later,
she entered a rehab program in Moose Jaw, which lasted 14 days.

"We went to get her when she was released and brought her home," Terri
says. "She was like a different kid."

She was back to being the daughter Terri remembers; she was the girl
who likes to draw and who can fill a room with her laughter; the
younger sister who would sometimes do her older sister's English
homework and get her big sis a better grade. She always was the
creative one; always has had a way with words.

While she returned to high school this fall, it was tough slugging.
Her attention span is short and her memory impaired.

One night at home, she and her mother caught an HBO documentary about
crystal meth, called Crank: Made in America. It cited a statistic that said
only six per cent of meth users ever recover.

"She bawled when she heard that," Terri says. " 'Well, I said. You
have to be one in that six per cent.' "

A few weeks ago, she left home. She is back on meth
again.

"The first time this happened I was devastated," Terri says. "I went
into a tizzy for a year. I can't do that again.

"I don't know what stage she's at. I know she hasn't contacted her
addiction counsellor. She has no job, no money. What is she doing all
day? I don't know."

All they can do now is wait.

"The first thing I ask when I come home (from work) is 'Did anybody
phone?' " Terri says.

Every time the phone rings, Terri wonders "Is it her?"

"I want to hear her say 'Mom, I'm going to rehab. Will you drive me?'
That's what I want to hear. That would be great. It's doesn't
guarantee this is over, but . . .

"It takes 18 months to get off this, not the 14 days in rehab she had.
I want her some place where she can get better. That is not here (at
home). Not yet.

"Do I think she'll come around? Yes. Family means a lot to her. Losing
her family would be almost too much to bear.

"I know she'll get out of it."

She is 17 years old.

There is such sparkle in those blue-blue eyes.