EDUCATING OUR YOUTH ON CRYSTAL METH

Sherry Elwood sees great strides being made in educating students on
the dangers of crystal meth.

Elwood, district principal of teacher staffing for the Nanaimo school
district was also chairwoman of the district's youth and family
education committee during its community crystal meth awareness
campaign last year, and a member of the Nanaimo Task Force on Crystal Meth.

In all cases, the focus was on educating students and parents about
the dangers of the drug.

"Does crystal meth exist in Nanaimo? Absolutely. Is it accessible to
kids? For sure," said Elwood.

"Do we have to have plans in place to educate kids about crystal
meth? Yes we do."

Elwood said when it comes to providing drug education, crystal meth
is probably the biggest focus.

"It's an awful drug it's a poison and so it has different kinds of
consequences," she said.

"What we know about good education is if we can keep the information
that we share with students consistent with the information we share
with parents, it gives parents a reasonable chance to have meaningful
conversations with their kids."

The awareness campaign provided the opportunity to share the material
students review in classrooms with the parents.

"We shared the videos, the factual information, we gave them
pamphlets, we gave them websites to track, we gave them testimonials
from users of crystal meth," said Elwood.

"The plan is, if we are all using the same language, we have a much
better opportunity for kids to understand and ultimately make
informed decisions about that particular drug."

Elwood said for children vulnerable to drug use, the factors that
lead them down that path are always there and that's not going to change.

"The factors that lead kid to consider drug usage self esteem, peer
pressure, feeling of vulnerability, anger, emotional instability all
of those issue are present whether or not they're using alcohol,
whether or not they're using cocaine, whether or not they're using
heroin and whether or not they're using meth," she said.

"The difficulty with crystal meth is it's highly addictive,
reasonably available and reasonably priced.

"One of the other aspects of meth that makes it more attractive to
kids is how it's packaged and how easy it is to take initially.

"Most new users of drugs don't like needles -- so tablet form or
smoking it make it a little easier to take that first step."

Elwood said information from the forums shows the crystal meth user
population is more in the young to middle-adult population and they
are often users of other drugs.

"And they will be honest. They will stand right up at a public
meeting and say the high you get from meth surpasses even the high
you get from heroin," she said.

It's when users spiral downward, forever chasing the euphoria of that
first high that the community has to be there for them.

"Because meth is such a horrible drug to rehab from, and the recovery
rate is so poor, we need to provide resources when a student says he
is ready, when he looks you in the eye and says he needs help," she said.

"You have to have a place to take them right away otherwise you lose
them. You only get one shot at it."

Elwood said there have been incidents experienced at the secondary
level where they haven't been able to access the help kids need.

"Things are changing in a much more positive way around that now," she said.

"And there is a focus in what used to be the CAPP curriculum where we
want safe settings for teachers and kids to have meaningful conversations.

"Kids are not going to open up in big assemblies and forums, but with
an adult who they trust, they will at least be open to the information."

So the dangers of crystal meth has been included with topics such as
risk taking, good decision making and self responsibility for the decisions.