FORUM HIGHLIGHTS DEPTHS OF METH DESPAIR

Crystal methamphetamine (meth) addiction is so powerful, chronic
users will attempt to render their own urine to re-ingest the
superdrug, said a pair of leading meth antagonists at a public forum
in Prince George, on the cusp of National Addictions Awareness Week.

"They even smoke their scabs," said Marilyn Erickson who, with Mark
McLaughlin, represented the B.C. Crystal Meth Society at an all-day
series of meth education seminars on Thursday, kicking off the
awareness campaign running all this week across Canada.

Erickson said the aggression, dangerous delusions, brain decay and
physical deformity caused by meth use even scared her, a chronic
crack user now in recovery.

McLaughlin, whose daughter was recently surviving on the streets of
Victoria as a meth addict but is now home trying to recover, added
that governments need to catch up to the effects of the drug and
fast, or more lives will be lost, and social costs will rise also.

"The criminal justice system becomes the healthcare system of last
resort," he said. Addicts will commit a major crime just to get
locked up in jail where they know they can access recovery programs,
because there are so few rehab spots in B.C. especially for those
addicted to meth. (Other kinds of addicts refuse to be treated
alongside the aggressive behaviours of meth addiction.) Or, also due
to the meth rehab shortage, addicts simply collapse into a life of
hard crime to pay for their all-consuming urge, which often results
in them getting busted.

"We don't agree with that," McLaughlin said. "Why not treat it with
the disease model before you are forced to deal with it as a criminal model?

"The law right now is: meth has all the rights," he added. "The
parents have no rights, the one suffering the addiction has no
rights, the drug has all the rights."

Erickson said B.C. is the only province in Canada that does not have
some form of law allowing addicts to be forcibly held in
detoxification facilities. As a street level addictions worker she
has known meth addicts to go to other provinces in order to
deliberately get themselves into that kind of custody, so they get help.

Dealing with meth and the other street level drugs of its ilk would
be an expensive proposition up front, said Erickson and McLaughlin,
but the big initial outlay would more than save real costs and human
costs later in the not too distant future, if it were done quickly and deeply.

"We don't have a homeless problem in B.C., we have an addictions
problem," McLaughlin said, meaning most people living on our streets,
doing most of the property crime and responsible for most of the
violent crime police deal with, can trace their contagious misfortune
to drug addiction.

The dealers of meth know this, and they are coming for school
children and disenfranchised youth especially with everything they've
got. Everything.

"Most of the ecstasy (another popular drug) seized by police now
tests hot for meth," Erickson explained. "About half the cocaine on
today's streets is cut with meth. They are even spraying it on
marijuana. They put it on everything because it is so cheap and so
addictive. They'll hook you fast on the stuff that will get you the
worst, and you didn't even know that's what you were getting."

"The business case for lacing absolutely everything you sell with
meth is inescapable," said McLaughlin.

The two presenters showed a B.C.-made video depicting meth addiction
in the words and actions of real meth addicts. One of them gave a
chilling account of how organized crime operates on our streets.

"They give these girls lots of free meth, get them really hooked, and
then say 'hey, you owe me a couple of hundred bucks, where's my
money? So these girls - they have morals and standards - suddenly
they're doing stuff they wouldn't even do with their high school
boyfriends to old, fat, hairy men for $10," he said.

The video also showed the physical effects of meth. Skin conditions
rupture into rampant pimples and pock marks and wrinkles. Teeth rot
to the root. Lesions develop. The mind believes bugs or crystals are
coming out of their skin so the addict will pick incessantly with
fingers or tweezers until they rip into their flesh and still carry
on, oblivious to the bleeding and pain and certain infection. They
totter and stagger and slur their words and speak rapidly at all times.

Worst of all, meth addiction costs only a few dollars a dose and
addiction hits in the first few usages. Frequently, the first time is
all that's needed to disease the user, turning a typical kid into a
raving meth-head in a matter of only a few weeks. Because most modern
teens have been conditioned to believe a few tries of a recreational
drug is OK, meth is like an ambush waiting inside what they think is
just old fashioned LSD or pot. The brain damage, Erickson and
McLaughlin said, is swift, severe and impossible to reverse once it's
been done.

"They are having panic attacks, nightmares, hearing voices, they
think they see shadow people, and that is three years later," said
Erickson of some recovering addicts she's worked with. "It takes a
long time for meth addicts to come back, and there are some things
that are never right again in their head."

"It happens so fast you'd be amazed," said McLaughlin, as a warning
to parents to be involved in their teen's life at every turn, and
don't leave any sign of personality change to chance.

Parents and advocates were urged to contact MLAs and MPs as soon as
possible to make the meth fight and sweeping addiction recovery
services a major spending priority as soon as possible.

For more information go to www.crystalmethbc.ca.