MYTH OR METH?

Experts, Advocates and Institutions Weigh in on a Drug That Is
Perceived As a Problem in Much of the Province

How does Powell River compare to other communities when it comes to
drug use? Have dug through government documents and national
statistics, the Peak hit the streets and talked with users,
counsellors, educators, police and politicians-searching for insight
into local drug use.

Reports tell us it's highly addictive and cheaper and easier to get
than cocaine or heroin. They tell us its relapse rates are higher
than those of any other drug and its debilitating effects are
permanent. But they also tell us use of the drug is on the rise, with
death dealers peddling it to our kids and stealing their souls for
brief moments of rapture.

A search for "meth" on Google News, an automated news aggregator
provided by Google Inc., yields more than 2,500 hits of headlines
taken from recent stories in the mainstream media.

Celebrity confessions and high-profile overdoses keep the headlines coming.

Just recently, Stacey "Fergie" Ferguson, the female voice of
Billboard chart-toppers Black Eyed Peas, told Time magazine of her
past struggles to kick crystal methamphetamine. "It was the hardest
boyfriend I ever had to break up with," she said.

So is meth really sweeping the nation like a virus outbreak? Or is it
the latest media-driven drug scare akin to the reefer madness of the
1930s and the crack panic of the 1980s?

Coming from police officers, politicians, health officials and
devastated parents, testimonies of personal experience with the
horrors of meth have been a staple of Canadian readers' news diets
for the better part of the 2000s. But statistical data documenting
the drug's alleged rampant spread is in short supply and limited to
surveys relying on self-reported drug use.

According to the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey, 6.4 per cent of
Canadians said they had used amphetamines at least once in their
lives (this included meth and an array of amphetamine-type
stimulants). Less than one per cent of respondents said they used the
drug in the previous 12 months. A similar survey of drug use by
students in Toronto found that one per cent had ever used crystal
meth in 2004, down from three per cent in 1993.

"The evidence regarding methamphetamine use in British Columbia is
confusing," admits a 2004 report by the ministry of health services.
Titled "Crystal Meth and Other Amphetamines: An Integrated BC
Strategy," the report compiles recent findings from across the
province. A 2002 school-based survey in Squamish showed lifetime use
at 1.4 per cent. The East Kootenays showed lifetime use at 3.3 per
cent. A Lower Mainland survey conducted the same year in non-school
settings showed a lifetime prevalence of 19 per cent, while a 2000
survey of street youth in Vancouver reported lifetime prevalence at
71 per cent.

A 2003 Adolescent Health Survey by the McCreary Centre Society
sampled more than 30,000 BC students and found that only four per
cent had ever used amphetamines.

This was down one per cent compared to the 1998 data of five per cent.

"Though the differences in sample groups and survey tools do not
allow for comparison between the results, it seems reasonable to
conclude that methamphetamine use among the general youth population
is stable or declining slightly," appendix one of the BC Strategy
states. "However, use among certain high-risk populations is much
higher and may be increasing significantly."

This seems to fit with the BC Coroner's Service report that shows
methamphetamine-related deaths have been increasing each year since
2000, peaking at 12 in 2003 before dropping to six in 2004.

From the available data, methamphetamine addiction appears to be a
big problem for a small proportion of the population.

So it may not be an epidemic. Still, reported as inexpensive, easily
accessible and responsible for addictions immune to treatment
options, the drug is causing enough fear for the province to take action.

"Crystal meth is a dirty, filthy drug. It ruins people's lives
forever," said BC Premier Gordon Campbell last September at his
annual address to the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). "It needs to
be stopped before its deathly hold claims the lives of more people in
our communities, usually young lives."

BC released the first $2 million of a $7-million meth plan at the end
of November 2005, aiming to address meth addiction through heightened
public awareness of the dangers of the drug; a project worth $10,000
for communities who choose to participate.

"The $10,000 grants will go towards programs that educate, raise
awareness, build capacity for community response and encourage
collaborative solutions," said Marvin Hunt, UBCM chair, in a news
release soon after the funding was announced.

That crystal meth is not on the radar in Powell River is no big secret.

"We haven't had anything recent," said Corporal Dennis Blanch, the
man in charge of the general investigation section and city drug
enforcement unit at the Powell River RCMP, during an interview with
the Peak. Blanch said the most recent meth-related drug bust was in
2003, when police took down a motor home allegedly headed to Texada
Island to set up a meth lab.

Myrna Leishman, chair of a city committee on substance abuse, which
also houses representatives from the RCMP, Vancouver Coastal Health,
Tla'amin (Sliammon) Community Health Services Society, Powell River
Child, Youth and Family Services Society, Career Link, Courtwatch,
School District 47 and the MLA office, agreed meth is not a local
concern, but remained worried about its spread. "We have no crystal
meth problem," she told the Peak. "But guaranteed it's going to come
here same as everything else is going to come here."

Thus, provincial money spurred city action and the wheels of
preventative education were put into motion. The City of Powell River
submitted a joint proposal for a meth response program in late May,
alongside Tla'Amin Community Health Services and Powell River Child,
Youth and Family Services. Some two weeks later, the Community
Methamphetamine Response Funding Program was approved by UBCM and
$20,000 was released from provincial coffers. Boosted by $5,000 in
kind from the city, the project is one of 190 such undertakings
across the province, aiming to educate residents of Powell River and
Tla'Amin around the dangers of crystal meth through advertising,
library resources, information booths and teaching parents to
communicate with youth.

"The response as been overwhelming and demonstrates the desire by
British Columbians to take positive action against the use and
production of the drug in our province," said Solicitor General John
Les in a recent press release.

But supporters of an evidence-based approach to the problem of
addiction see things differently.

"Sensational drug stories can have untold harm," said Joanne
Simister, criminology instructor at Malaspina University-College.
Simister was quick to add she does not, in any way, condone or
encourage meth use, but feels that the current hype around crystal
meth involves scare tactics, false reporting and personal opinions
masquerading as fact, which can lead to the loss of credibility for
the media and authorities. "Once kids find out we're not truthful
about drugs, they'll never trust us about anything else," she said,
referring to suggestions of the hopelessness of treatment, which were
also questioned in a new report called "The Next Big Thing?
Methamphetamine in the United States."

Published by the Sentencing Project, a think-tank based in
Washington, DC, the report illustrates the portrayal of
methamphetamine as an epidemic that has been grossly overstated by
the media. A copy of the report can be found online at
www.sentencingproject.org.

David Lewis, professor of community health and medicine at Brown
University in Rhode Island, also shares this point and expressed his
views in an open letter to the media in July 2005. Signed by 92
physicians, treatment specialists and researchers, the letter calls
on the media to be responsible in its characterization of
methamphetamine use, requesting, "media coverage of this issue be
based on science, not presumption and prejudice." The letter can be
found at www.jointogether.org.

Dan Gardner, columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, agreed with the
skeptics, adding concerns about the misallocation of resources.
"Unnecessary preventative measures actually do inflict harm," he told
the Peak in an email. "Whatever you spend on them is money you don't
have for other things that actually could have done some good. So
when police and other authorities spend money on fictional threats,
it matters."

History proved the "epidemic" predictions of crack cocaine in the
late 1980s false and the Sentencing Project report states
methamphetamine is likely to follow the same path.

In regions actually ravaged by the drug, the eventual deterioration
of people's lives is certain to serve as a beacon of warning for
children reaching adolescence, writes Ryan King, author of the report.

King adds it is everyone's responsibility to use prevention and
educational methods that young people can trust; ones that are based
in fact and portray consequences of drug use and effectiveness of
treatment in a realistic fashion.

WHY PEOPLE USE CRYSTAL METH:

- - Chemical rush (equivalent to 600 times the normal levels of
dopamine and nor epinephrine) - Increased alertness, motivation and
brain activity (short-term) - Weight loss (may be an adverse effect,
depending on circumstance)

CONSEQUENCES OF USE:

- - Amphetamine psychosis - Severe psychological addiction - Depression
- - Inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable life
events - Acne - Tooth decay - Erectile dysfunction - Compulsive
fascination with useless repetitive tasks - False sensation of flesh
crawling with bugs, accompanied by compulsive picking and infected
sores - Immune system damage -Death

With files from www.wikipedia.org and www.crystalrecovery.com