THE DOUBLE DANGER OF CRYSTAL METH

It's Cheap, Easy To Make, Highly Addictive--And An Explosive Threat
To Non-Users

Carolyn Beaudoin was a straight-A high-school student in Burnaby,
B.C., when, at an all-night rave dance party, she tried crystal meth.
It was the summer of 1999, and her then boyfriend said it would make
her feel great.

Out of curiosity and a sense of youthful invincibility, she tried it.
To this day she wishes to God she could take that decision back. "It
was a terrible mistake," says Beaudoin, now 24. "I had no idea how
bad it was, and how it would change my life."

Like many who try the powerful man-made stimulant, which has been
sweeping across North America over the past decade, Beaudoin felt
hooked on crystal meth after her first few hits. The surge of
pleasure was so intense and the cravings so strong she had to
experience it again. Soon she was doing it every day. The former
student-council president who dreamed of becoming a doctor began
missing so much school due to her drug use that she failed to
graduate that year. She was hooked for almost two years. "All I cared
about was where I was going to get the next hit."

She has now turned her life around, stayed clean for five years and
earned a college degree.

But what distresses her most is that she believes crystal meth
permanently altered her brain chemistry, leaving her susceptible to
bouts of depression and to social isolation. "It changed who I am and
how my brain works; I am not the same person," says Beaudoin, who
warns high-school students not to make the same mistake she did. "It
is putting poison in your body."

Crystal meth goes by many names: ice, glass, crank, chalk, jib,
speed, the poor man's cocaine. Its scientific name is methamphetamine
and it is a central-nervous-system stimulant closely related to
amphetamine, causing extreme wakefulness, energy, euphoria and loss
of appetite. Popular in the '60s as speed in pill form, it had a
resurgence over the last decade in a smokable crystal form five times
more potent.

Experts are divided about whether crystal-meth use has peaked and is
now declining or whether it is poised to become an epidemic.

Former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, now a senator, caused a stir
last year when he claimed the threat of crystal meth was being overblown.

That view is shared by drug-addiction expert Timothy Stockwell,
director of the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C. at the
University of Victoria. "We have to keep all drug use in
perspective--there are pockets of high crystal-meth use, but the
average use in Canada is very low."

He notes that, in general, people who do crystal meth also tend to do
other drugs such as ecstasy, alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, and
focusing solely on crystal meth removes the common factors--and
solutions--that underlie all drug-abuse problems.

But while others agree alcohol, heroin and cocaine still cause a
greater amount of harm in Canada, they warn crystal meth has the
potential to explode in this country because it is so cheap--a hit is
about $10 to $15--the highs are several times longer than those of
cocaine, and it is easily available from recipes on the Internet.

"We are sitting at a crossroads in Canada right now," warns Sgt. Doug
Culver, national coordinator for Synthetic Drug Operations for the
RCMP in Ottawa. "Either we get it under control or we risk the
exponential growth in crystal-meth trafficking and use that we have
seen in the States and some other countries."

Dan Mathieson, mayor of Stratford, Ont., agrees. His city, and the
surrounding farming region of Perth County, saw a sudden huge
increase in crystal-meth use and illegal-lab busts over the last two years.

Twelve of the 19 labs discovered in Ontario in an 18-month period
were in Perth County. "Some say concerns over crystal meth are being
blown out of proportion, but to me it is the No. 1 drug," says
Mathieson. "Not only can it cause lasting harm to the individual who
uses it but it can also harm innocent bystanders, especially those
living near clandestine labs, which are highly toxic and dangerous
because of explosions and fires."

Crystal meth's potential for physical damage is great, says Wende
Wood, a psychiatric pharmacist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health in Toronto. The most disturbing are the possibility of
irreversible brain damage, which can bring long-term depression,
paranoia, psychosis or memory loss; and changes to the brain that
mimic Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's. Recently St. Paul's
Hospital in Vancouver opened a special 15-bed psychiatric-care ward
largely to reduce the disruption caused by meth-induced psychosis in
the emergency ward. "It's a huge medical problem because one in five
heavy or chronic meth users will have periods of psychosis," says Dr.
Bill MacEwan. "Some return again and again to the emergency ward,
which is not a good place for them--or for the other patients--as
they can be violent and psychotic."

Meth doesn't damage only the brain.

It can cause "meth mouth"--teeth rapidly darken, decay and fall out.
Skin can become covered in scabs, caused by users scratching at bugs
they imagine crawling on their skin. Extreme weight loss,
malnutrition, and kidney, liver and heart damage are also common.

The craving for meth can be so powerful that former addicts are
always at risk of relapsing--simply seeing drug paraphernalia, being
in a familiar spot where they did meth or seeing others do it can
spur a voracious craving. "Just thinking about meth can cause their
blood pressure to spike, their skin to flush, their stomach to
tighten and churn," says Dr. Alex Stalcup, a leading United
States-based drug-treatment expert who was associated with the
Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic and is the medical director of the New
Leaf Treatment Centre in San Francisco.

One young woman who beat a crystal-meth addiction two years ago
refused to talk about her experiences for this article for that very
reason: simply talking about it might put her at risk of relapse.

She hit rock bottom in her early 20s, when she was arrested and
served jail time for crystal-meth trafficking. She wanted to tell her
story to warn others, but after careful reflection she refused. "I
simply can't talk about it--it stirs up the feelings and cravings and
makes me too vulnerable," says the woman, who is now doing well in
college and fears going back to her old life.

Amphetamine was first synthesized by a Japanese chemist in 1919 and
was widely used in low doses for the next four decades as a
prescription drug for asthma, weight loss and narcolepsy--and given
by German and American military in World War II to keep soldiers and
pilots awake.

In the 1960s and '70s it flourished in pill form as "speed," giving
rise to the name "speed freaks" for the mental changes, violent
outbursts and twitchiness it often caused.

It faded from popular use in the mid-1970s, says Culver, but in the
mid-1980s a smokable crystal form, much more potent than the pills,
emerged. This version of methamphetamine is easily synthesized from
common ingredients such as pseudoephedrine found in cold medicines;
drain cleaner; paint thinner; lithium from batteries; and iodine.

In Canada the biggest producers of crystal meth are biker gangs and
organized crime, particularly Asian gangs, who run large clandestine
chemical labs. Just one or two people who know how to cook batches
can bring a problem to a community, especially if they teach others
how to make it, says Culver.

Crystal-meth labs are so toxic they pose health threats not only to
the "cooks" but to their families, particularly children who may be
in the house; the public who live around them; and the first
responders to the scene, such as police, firefighters and ambulance
workers. "Whole houses can be obliterated in an explosion," says
Culver. (Quebec has the highest number of fires due to crystal meth.)
Many crystal-meth labs are discovered when firefighters respond to an
explosion or flash fire ignited by the volatile chemical ingredients
used to brew the drug. Cleanup of the labs is difficult, requiring
trained teams wearing Hazmat protection suits and can take several
days, exposing the workers to a slew of toxic chemicals.

For every kilogram of crystal meth made, between five and seven
kilograms of toxic waste is produced, enough to "pose an
environmental or public-health hazard," says Dr. Rosana Pellizzari,
medical-health officer for Perth County. The chemicals are usually
dumped in farmers' fields, landfills or vacant lots, potentially
harming any living thing that comes near or leaching into the local
water system. "In Stratford, we had an incident where they were
dumped at a park in the heart of our city," adds Pellizzari.

"Crystal meth is such a complex problem that it has to be attacked on
many fronts," says Gordon Robson, the mayor of Maple Ridge, B.C., who
four years ago spearheaded a task force to combat crystal-meth use on
three fronts: youth education and community awareness, increased
enforcement, and expanded drug-rehabilitation services.

The meth problem in Maple Ridge has greatly diminished, thanks to the
coordinated effort, says Robson.

The Maple Ridge model is now being adopted by communities across
Canada. Last year the B.C. government announced it would contribute
more than $7 million to fight crystal meth. The federal government
recently earmarked $851,000 to combat it in First Nation and Inuit
communities and has increased maximum penalties for possession and trafficking.

Controlling the chemicals that make the drug is one way to control
clandestine labs and the supply on the street.

Most large meth labs, run by organized crime, purchase bulk supplies
of the precursor ingredients such as ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and
red phosphorus from chemical manufacturers--usually by posing as
legitimate buyers--notes Culver.

In 2003 the RCMP established the National Chemical Precursor
Diversion Program, an initiative that works with the chemical
industry and NDMAC, an organization representing nonprescription-drug
manufacturers in Canada, to spot and prevent suspicious transactions.
"That program is helping restrict the availability of bulk supplies,"
says Culver.

A program in Canada called Meth Watch aims to curtail the ability of
would-be cooks in mini-labs to get ingredients off hardware and
drugstore shelves.

Theft or purchase of items such as cold and allergy medicine
containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, matchbooks (for the red
phosphorus on the strike pads), acetone, starter fluid, drain
cleaner, coffee filters and other items can alert retail staff that
meth is being cooked.

"Just knowing that someone may be watching and reporting the activity
can curtail some of the activity," notes Gerry Harrington of NDMAC.

Carolyn Beaudoin now speaks to school groups and at drug-awareness
conferences about the dangers and impact of crystal meth. Her main
message: "Don't think it can't happen to you, that you can try it
once and be okay. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone."
And yes, those first few times were fun. "But it wasn't worth it,"
she says. "Nothing would ever be worth what crystal meth takes away from you."