ADDICTION GRIP THAT'S HARD TO BREAK

Justin Cooper knows there is crystal methamphetamine in Kelowna.

He can smell it in the toxic body odour of his Mission McDonald's customers.

It's offered to him as he works his shifts; he can stop and say hi to
the same kids he did drugs with downtown.

"I was a pretty good kid before crystal meth-a little mischief, drugs
that sort of thing," Cooper says.

"Within a week of trying meth I was face down on Leon, gun to me
head, hands cuffed behind my back."

Nabbed that day for riding in a car with stolen plates, he managed to
talk his way out of a visit to the RCMP detachment by saying he was a
hitchhiker-he didn't know the driver, didn't know what he had done.

"I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was going to," he admits.

That was almost two years ago.

Now 18 years old, he counts a 28-year-old with six years sobriety
among his closest friends.

His social circle is a menagerie of 12-steppers, most twice or three
times his age.

Connections to regular high school kids went out the window when
crystal meth dealers walked through the front doors of his school in
the fall of 2004.

"I would say it's a big problem now and its growing," he said. "I see
it all over town."

His high school was Rutland senior secondary. Two dealers approached
him in a school corridor and told him where he and his friends could
score a "point."

He went to the Rutland area home after school, knocked on the door
and walked out with a $10, 12-hour incredible high.

It was one of the last good highs he ever got off meth, although
craving for that feeling brought him back to the dealer's door for
two weeks straight until his parents kicked him out and he moved in
with the dealer.

Cooper had used several drugs before, starting by pinching marijuana
and alcohol when he was 12 years old. He had never tried crystal meth
until he moved to Kelowna.

"I told myself I would never use it, but curiosity got the better of
me," he said.

Cooper has no visible signs of a drug fiend.

Articulate and polite, his eyes sparkle with impish youthfulness,
similar to any young guy telling a story of how they outsmarted
parents and teachers.

But his teenage memories are far from stories of drawing graffiti on
the local high school or trying cigarettes at the mall.

Instead, he remembers the day he lacked the strength to use his
lighter for a smoke as he struggled through withdrawal in his
father's basement.

He knows the craps, nausea, even bizarre hallucinations at the end of
meth's painful path. It is what keeps him off drugs today.

"Basically I always tried to use to hide my feelings and to hide me
from myself. When I used it gave me that liquid courage," said Cooper.

Had he known something of the road that lay ahead, he said he
definitely would have thought twice before trying the drug, might
have even stopped himself.

This is why he is now working with Kelowna's Crystal Meth Task Force.

On May 23, the task force launches the kick off of its 90-day
campaign to find a strategy for dealing with the drug.

The event begins at 6 p.m. at the Rotary Centre for the Arts ( Mary
Irwin Theatre) with a showing of the award-winning documentary
Crystal Fear, Crystal Clear.

Volunteers are needed to sit on one of the task force's three
committees-education, enforcement, treatment.

For information go to: www.crystalmethtaskforce.ca.