A MOTHER'S MESSAGE

The low sun of a winter afternoon sparkles across Semiahmoo Bay along
the seashore of White Rock. The shoreline, winding along Marine Drive,
is alive with joggers and sightseers, as boats float slowly out toward
the Pacific.

It was in this idyllic setting Jan. 17, 2002, that two RCMP officers
appeared on Kerry Jackson's doorstep to tell her that her only child,
26-year-old Ryan Jackson, had jumped off the Cambie Street Bridge to a
concrete walkway 30 feet below. Although Ryan was pronounced dead Jan.
14, because of the damage to his face the coroner needed four days to
obtain the dental records needed to identify him. On Boxing Day three
weeks earlier, Jackson and Ryan had walked that same Semiahmoo
shoreline during what Jackson now realizes was her son's farewell visit.

"He was telling me goodbye," says Jackson, as her eyes well up. "He
told me he had a great childhood, and wanted me to know there had been
some good times." These prophetic comments would set off alarm bells
for most parents, but Jackson had difficulty interpreting anything
Ryan said during the last 10 months of his life, when he was addicted
to crystal methamphetamine. The addictive and debilitating drug had
brought on a psychosis that robbed him of his will to live.

After Ryan's death, Jackson fell into her own deep depression. She
retreated to her White Rock home and shut out the world. She was
unable to work as a graphic designer and contemplated taking her own
life.

"The pain was so great, I didn't know if I could go on," she says. Her
grief slowly turned to painful introspection about her role as the
mother of a suicide victim, and to a desire to understand what
happened to her son. As she began to study crystal meth, she felt a
responsibility to inform other parents about the dangerous effects of
the drug so similar tragedies could be avoided. "Every time I came
across a piece of information I knew most parents didn't know, I felt
I had to do something."

In 2005 she started 20:20 Parenting, a drug awareness organization
that educates parents about the potential warning signs of drug abuse.
Her message: no family is untouchable. "It's not just the poor kid who
has been living on the street most of his life," says Jackson. "This
is a problem that cuts across all social and economic lines."

Lou DeMaeyer has spent the last 10 years as a drug and alcohol
counsellor at Covenant House, a support agency that serves troubled
young people in Vancouver. DeMaeyer, who sees up to 10 meth addicts
per week-roughly 65 per cent of his consultations-says crystal meth
use has been on a steady increase since 2004, but that the highest
concentration of meth users still lies within the gay community and
among longtime drug addicts and street youth, who are turning away
from crack cocaine and heroin to the cheaper, longer-lasting crystal
meth.

"If you have a drug addiction and it's not dealt with, and a drug
that's cheaper and makes you feel equally as good becomes available,
it's not a huge leap," he says, adding that Vancouver's drug treatment
community has not evolved to meet the challenges of the city's crystal
meth problem. "It came on fast and hard and they're still reeling."

Last March, B.C.'s Ministry of Health announced a new crystal meth
strategy that rallies law enforcement and treatment and prevention
organizations to form a united front, although province officials
admit they still do not fully understand the scope of the problem.

"Nobody has yet put a finite number on the number of crystal meth
addicts," says Laurie Dawkins, a senior management officer at the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

Dawkins says the new strategy will include an aggressive education
campaign to counteract crystal meth's growing appeal among young people.

Jackson also targets young people who are vulnerable to the peer
pressure and low self-esteem that can result in drug use. She speaks
at elementary and high schools throughout the Lower Mainland to
educate students about crystal meth and other drugs. In Vancouver, the
school board is working on a program to be launched next year that
will teach early prevention methods to students, parents and teachers.

Jackson believes educating parents is the key to stopping young people
from doing drugs. She has co-authored a free information guide for
parents available on her 20:20 Parenting website that outlines the
early warning signs of crystal meth use. But she says her personal
story that chronicles the plight of her son Ryan is more effective in
getting parent's attention than statistics or a list of possible
symptoms. "Many parents don't take action until there is already a
crisis. I want them to feel what that crisis is like before it happens
to them."

Ryan was born in Kamloops in 1975. Two years later, Jackson separated
from her husband, who left for Alberta where he remarried and lost
contact with his ex-wife and son. Seeking a fresh start, Jackson moved
Ryan to Vancouver where she provided him with a loving and stable
home. "We were an ordinary family and he was a happy kid," she says.
"Ryan never seemed to get down about anything." Ryan's first
experience with drugs came in high school, where like so many of his
classmates he smoked marijuana. She talked with Ryan about drugs and
alcohol, but was confronted with the denials familiar to millions of
parents across Canada. "He was very good at hiding things from me,"
says Jackson, who now looks back on Ryan's behaviour with a more
educated eye. "There were some tell-tale signs, but I wasn't good at
recognizing them."

Ryan began cutting class and was eventually placed in a disciplinary
program due to truancy and failing grades. He dropped out in Grade 11
and worked at a clothing store, before finally landing a full-time
position as a security system installer. Good-looking and athletic, he
was known as a party boy who used drugs and alcohol recreationally. He
attended raves and enjoyed the club scene, but it was after he tried
crystal meth that his life spiralled down to what he later called his
"chamber of horrors."

A $10 bag of crystal meth, also known as ice or jib, can be smoked,
snorted, ingested or injected to produce a euphoric high that can last
up to 24 hours, by stimulating a massive release of dopamine-a
chemical in the brain that produces feelings of pleasure. Prolonged
use shuts down this brain function, so the addict can no longer feel
pleasure unless they are using.

As Ryan's crystal meth habit grew, he became more transient, sometimes
disappearing for weeks at a time. His phone calls home became less
frequent but more disturbing, as he exhibited the psychotic signs of a
full-blown meth addict. He shocked Jackson with delusional tales of
government espionage and Special Forces training, and at one time
claimed his life was intertwined with the movie The Matrix.

"The drug was quickly taking over his mind," says Jackson. "It was a
terrifying thing to witness."

As Ryan's behaviour became erratic, the vestiges of his former life
fell away. He was fired from his job and his girlfriend left him. His
old friends were replaced by other meth addicts. As he used more
drugs, he needed a steady cash flow his welfare cheque could not
provide. Broke and addicted, he turned to the street corners of the
Vancouver sex trade. Jackson recalls a phone call she received from a
distraught Ryan shortly after he began working the streets.

"I could barely understand him because his voice was cracking," she
says. "He told me that a man had offered him $100 for a blow job and
then he just trailed off."

Ryan, who had only dated girls, later told his mom he wasn't gay and
that the pull of crystal meth had driven him to prostitution. "I said
I didn't care if he was gay or not and that I would love him no matter
what he did," Jackson says.

She pleaded for Ryan to seek treatment, but her cries fell on deaf
ears, as his meth-induced psychosis made him paranoid of anyone who
tried to help. She sought to have Ryan committed, against his will if
necessary, to a treatment facility.

Jackson saw her chance in April 2001, when Ryan agreed to meet her for
a late lunch at a Milestone's restaurant in the West End. Though he
had lost weight, Ryan looked relatively healthy. He had open cuts on
his legs due to the manic scratching common to meth users, but he had
avoided the facial sores that brand many addicts. Despite his normal
appearance, Ryan launched into a rambling monologue of paranoid
delusions and conspiracies that confirmed his critical condition. "He
told me he was being constantly filmed by a movie crew that followed
him wherever he went, and that he also was training as a ninja for the
government," Jackson says.

She nodded along with Ryan's delusions, noting any reference to his
condition or mention of counselling or treatment would scare him off.
"I had to be extremely careful with my words, because if I did
anything to trigger his anger he would think I was against him and he
would be gone."

As Ryan rambled on, Jackson noticed a pair of wire cutters poking out
of his pants pocket. She knew that Ryan could be arrested if he was
deemed to be a danger to himself or others, and she saw the potential
weapon as an excuse to call the police. During a brief pause in Ryan's
diatribe, Jackson went to the washroom and frantically dialed 911 on
her cellphone. "I told them he was psychotic and he had the wire
cutters, so they needed to come and get him." She rejoined Ryan at
their table and waited anxiously for the police, not knowing what her
son's reaction would be when uniformed officers approached him. "I was
terrified that he would blow up and there would be a confrontation."
But instead, Jackson watched in disbelief as Ryan calmly greeted the
responding officers and spoke softly and rationally, even thanking his
mother for her concern. The wire cutters were not illegal and Ryan
showed no signs of the psychosis he had displayed moments earlier. "He
was able to pull the wool over their eyes and talk normally, so they
had no choice but to leave him be."

Jackson refused to give up, and offered Ryan a drive home in her car,
where she had hidden a tape recorder under the seat to capture his
tell-tale ramblings. "I was trying to catch him in the act so I could
prove to the authorities he was sick and needed help." Predictably,
Ryan lapsed back into his psychosis and Jackson placed another call to
the police in a gas station restroom; this time contacting Car 87, a
branch of the VPD that deals specifically with psych cases. She was
told it would be at least four hours before anyone was available.

Feeling utterly alone and helpless, Jackson drove Ryan to his
Vancouver home where he lived with several other crystal meth addicts.
She convinced Ryan to show her his room that was cluttered with a bed,
a desk, and all his clothes and personal belongings. Jackson made a
final call to the VPD psych unit from the washroom of Ryan's house,
and then returned to his room to wait for their arrival. Although the
unnerving sounds of the meth house surrounded them, Jackson relished
the company of her son, who until that evening had been reduced to a
panicked voice on the telephone.

"We both lay there on his bed looking at the ceiling, and we just
talked," Jackson remembers. "It was so good to be close to him, but at
the same time very painful."

When the police arrived, the Jacksons were summoned out to the
sidewalk where several policemen and a psych nurse waited to evaluate
Ryan, and apprehend him if necessary.

He met the police with the same calm he demonstrated at the
restaurant.

"He didn't even seem surprised," says Jackson. Her tape of Ryan's
ramblings was not enough to have him detained. "He still had a small
grasp on reality and could manipulate people if he really focused." So
for the second time in five hours, she watched as Ryan's best chance
for recovery fell through.

Jackson looks back on that day in the same way she recalls much of
Ryan's life. She wonders what she could have done differently and what
part of herself she could have offered to ease her son's pain. "I
still have those feelings of guilt, that I somehow had failed him.
Learning to forgive myself has been a big part of the grieving process."

Ryan was picked up by the RCMP two weeks later in Chilliwack for
throwing a psychotic fit in the middle of a freeway. He began a
pattern of treatment and relapse that continued until the end of his
life. "He would be committed to an institution for 30 days and then be
released and would immediately start using again," Jackson says.

Ryan spent four months of his 10-month addiction in the psych wards of
Riverview and St. Paul's Hospital, though the counselling and
treatment did little to improve his condition. "The drugs seemed to
have taken everything from him, including his personality. He had done
so much damage to his brain, he didn't think he could ever recover,"
Jackson says.

According to Dr. David Marsh of the B.C. Medical Association,
meth-induced psychosis is rare but the effects can be long-lasting.
"Roughly 85 per cent of the people who become psychotic with crystal
meth see their psychosis resolve after four to five days," says Marsh.
"For the remaining 15 per cent of people who have persistent psychosis
from crystal meth, it can go on for weeks or months, even when they've
stopped using the drug."

In Ryan's case, his psychosis persisted and led to thoughts of
suicide. Jackson recalls using her training as a former Vancouver
Crisis Line volunteer during a phone conversation with Ryan, not long
before his death. "He called me up and I was able to find out where he
was and talk him out of it," she says, noting that this was the only
time he had explicitly talked about killing himself. She later learned
Ryan had practiced swan dives at a Vancouver community centre pool in
the days leading up to his fatal leap off the Cambie Street Bridge.

Many important details of Ryan's ordeal have been posthumously
revealed to Jackson as she learns more about her son, his addiction
and what might have saved him. Today, her organization's mission
statement is "Our 20:20 hindsight for your 20:20 foresight."

Jackson says by helping others avoid future tragedy, she can better
deal with the horrific events of the past. "This work has helped me
heal... I didn't have enough wisdom to know what he really needed from
me. Hopefully I can give parents that wisdom so they don't have to go
through what we went through."

And all the while, she thinks of Ryan. She sees him at the elementary
schools, where the smiles of children remind her of when he was a
happy and fun-loving little boy. She is haunted by his later years,
when he turned into a man she didn't recognize. Reflecting on Ryan's
life is often painful, but Jackson says her son would be proud of her
work. "He wouldn't want me to hold anything back if his story was
going to help someone," she says. "He'd say, 'Go for it, Mom.'"

Back in her White Rock home, a framed collage of Ryan's childhood
hangs on Jackson's bedroom wall. In every picture, from his highchair
to the playground, Ryan's beaming smile portrays the joy and innocence
of youth. Jackson looks over the pictures with her own tired smile,
and laments that her son had left her long before he finally died.

"In some ways I feel closer to him now then when he was alive," she
says. "When they are addicted, they lose their true selves. I now
understand his death was unnecessary, but it's not going to be in vain."

For information on Jackson's parenting organization, go to
www.2020parenting.com.