CRYSTAL METH IS A RECIPE FOR MAYHEM

Second of two parts

One of the few places where crystal meth isn't the drug of choice is
Vancouver's notoriously drug-addled Downtown Eastside.

Ironically, cocaine and heroin dealers have kept it out to protect
their well-established supply lines, distribution systems and large
client base, according to Inspector Kash Heed, who until recently was
head of the Vancouver police department's narcotics unit.

But everywhere else in the province, it is a growing
problem.

At the Salvation Army's Caring House in Maple Ridge, Gordie Robson
says every one of the 90 people who have been in the program since
March is a meth addict. They're obsessive, compulsive and violent.

Across the province, RCMP Corporal Scott Rintoul estimates there are
about 30 meth labs. But meth is so simple to make that it can be
cooked up in a hotel room, a family kitchen or a basement and so
lucrative that Rintoul figures labs may soon rival marijuana-growing
operations. For about $60 worth of ingredients, you can cook up $3,000
worth of product in about 10 minutes.

Roger Lake, president of the Washington State Narcotics Investigation
Association, says B.C. is where Washington was a decade ago. Now his
state has the third biggest meth problem in North America.

Lake suspects that police here have vastly underestimated the number
of labs because most of them don't know a meth lab when they see it.

That was certainly the case when he was working in Tacoma for the
Washington state police.

"We had cops standing in the middle of meth labs and they didn't know
it. They were looking for all the glassware and beakers that you used
to need.

"But now, all you need is a blender, a coffee filter and a Pyrex pan,"
says Lake, a founder of the Washington state methamphetamine
initiative, which brought together a broad coalition of emergency
response people, doctors, nurses, social workers, addiction
specialists and others to deal with the state's meth problem.

What makes meth so attractive to drug dealers is that it's quick and
easy to make and none of the ingredients is imported.

Ephedrine or pseudophedrine found in Sudafed, Actifed as well as some
weight-loss drugs are the active ingredients. These drugs are sold
over the counter across Canada and sales are completely
unregulated.

The ephedrine is then cooked in a stew of solvents such as paint
thinners, household cleansers and red phosphorous found on match tips.
The purer the meth, the clearer the crystals. Much of what is sold on
the street is either a cloudy grey or beige and that muddiness is pure
poison.

Ten years ago, Washington police found only 54 labs. Last year, there
were busts at more than 6,000 along the I-5 corridor from the Mexican
to Canadian borders, with 1,470 in Washington state alone. But Lake
says police find only about one-tenth of the labs, so he figures there
may be as many as 15,000 meth labs in Washington.

The largest lab found in B.C. so far was in Surrey, where RCMP seized
six kilograms of meth -- a huge amount when you consider a tenth of a
gram of pure meth can produce a 10- to 12-hour high.

A few months ago, Vancouver police found a lab in a house in the
upscale Oakridge neighbourhood. The house was subsequently condemned
as a toxic waste site. Earlier this year, a small lab was found in a
high-priced downtown condo, and there have been police finds all over
the province, from Mackenzie to Powell River.

Dr. Ian Martin, Vancouver police Inspector Dave Jones and Rintoul were
among the first to raise the alarm about increased meth use in Vancouver.

Along with a long list of youth street workers, addiction experts,
health specialists, bureaucrats and others, they organized a meeting
last November to talk about it. The result was the founding of the
methamphetamine response committee in January. Martin, a physician in
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's Three Bridges clinic downtown,
heads the prevention, treatment and professional education group.

Jones and Rintoul are both working to educate police and businesses
that sell meth's ingredients about the drug.

Jones is also working with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to
come up with guidelines for how to respond to addicts.

First and foremost, Jones wants to end the practice of police officers
babysitting violent addicts in the back of their wagons in hospital
parking lots.

What he wants is implementation of all four pillars of the city's drug
plan -- prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement.

Jones is frustrated that there are so few services and even those are
uncoordinated.

"When an addict says he or she really wants to get off drugs, what
they're told is, 'Call here.' So they call and get told that there's a
waiting list, but they can leave a phone number.

"But they don't have a phone number or even a place to
live."

What Jones longs for is a commitment to a multidisciplinary approach
similar to the Washington state methamphetamine initiative engineered
by Roger Lake and others.

There, the various agencies -- police, fire, ambulance, hospitals,
street workers, social workers and so on -- agreed to a simple
philosophy: There is no wrong door into the system. They agreed that
every door that opened would lead people to the help they needed.

"Here," says Jones, "every door is pretty much the wrong door.
Everywhere you go, it doesn't seem to be the right place or else there
is no place to send you."

It's what the health authority wants as well.

"Something has to be done in the coming months because I don't think
we can sustain this much longer," says Jennifer Vornbrock, manager of
the health authority's youth addiction services.

But she admits there is no money for what she wants -- a team approach
offering a full range of services.

"You need a team to deal with them because some kids have superhuman
strength when they're using and you need to take the kid out of the
situation. You need a safe place for them to go and calm down and come
down and it can take quite a while."

Even though politicians have been talking about the four pillars plan
for years, there remains a horrific shortage of detox and
rehabilitation beds.

Vancouver Coastal has only 10 detox beds for youths and the authority
admits that the detox units are able to handle only about 15 per cent
of the calls it receives for help.

But how many more beds? Nobody really knows, because as Martin points
out, nobody really knows how long it takes to detox crystal meth users.

Nobody really knows how long it takes for rehab either. But some
studies suggest that for rehab to be successful, it may take up to six
months to a year of residential treatment. Rehab for other drugs is
more like a month to three months.

"It is a drug with a low recovery rate. The cravings are incredible,"
says Vornbrock.

"A user has almost rewired their brain. It can result in decreased
motor skills, loss of memory and decreased physical skills.
Out-patient treatment is quite successful, but the addict will
probably have a long, long, journey to recovery and the recovery rate
is less than 10 per cent."

Lake says the meth epidemic can only be averted with a community-wide
mobilization similar to what happened in his state, which has resulted
in the number of labs declining by about a quarter in the past five
years.

It meant that old ideas had to be set aside and old enmities between
police, treatment providers, mental health workers, addictions experts
and others set aside.

"It [the meth epidemic] will peak probably in five years if the
community activates and does something about it," he says.

In Washington, the community was slow to recognize the problem because
people had heard so much about drugs that they just didn't believe
that meth is as bad as it is and that its effects could be so
disabling and dangerous.

Then fires started breaking out everywhere -- in mini-labs in people's
homes, in dumpsters, freeway on-ramps and even trail heads, where meth
cookers dumped their waste. The fires required specialized fire fighters.

Lithium -- used in camera batteries and for meth production -- bursts
into flames when it comes into contact with water and there's lots of
water in B.C. and Washington during the rainy season.

Domestic violence skyrocketed as parents became addicted. The child
protection service became overloaded with very troubled kids -- not
just ones who were meth addicts, but the children of meth addicts.

Meth addicts are not only violent and paranoid, they are incapable of
bonding with other people -- even their own children. It's because the
drug rearranges the brain's pleasure centres so that only sex and meth
can gratify the user.

Addicts' kids are like the Romanian orphans of Ceausescu's regime.
They are completely unable to bond with anyone because they have never
been loved. Washington foster parents started refusing to take them
because they are so difficult to handle.

So what do we do?

Legislators need to put daily limits on the sale to individuals of
ephedrine-based drugs as well as the other key ingredients, as has
been done in Washington.

Legislators need to provide money to enable the methamphetamine
response committee to come up with a multidisciplinary approach that
includes tonnes of education for law enforcement people, fire and
emergency response teams so that everyone can recognize a lab when
they see it and respond accordingly.

There needs to be money for educating teachers, parents, children and
neighbourhoods, and it has to be done differently from the drug
education in the past.

There is probably much more that needs to be done. But we have to do
something now, before meth addiction spirals out of control.