KIDS UNDER 12 USING ECSTASY, CRYSTAL METH

Pot Is Being Laced With Heavier Drugs: Counsellor

Children under the age of 12 in Abbotsford are regularly using
ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine and have become one of the most
sought after markets for drug dealers, according to police,
counsellors, drug use experts and former addicts.

"Absolutely. There are some that age who are using ecstasy," said
Brian Gross, program director at IMPACT, an Abbotsford addiction and
counselling centre for youth between the ages of 12 and 24. "Most of
it has meth in it and we do a great deal to make kids understand that."

Const. Ian MacDonald of the Abbotsford police department said there
is a direct relationship between organized crime and drug
distribution. "The only objective for organized crime is to make
money and they don't care who consumes their product," he said.

Mark McLaughlin is the executive director of Crystal Meth British
Columbia, a non-profit society educating youth about the dangers of
methamphetamine drug use. McLaughlin said meth gets cut into other
street drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy.

"Any pill or powder can have meth in it. It can be sprayed on
marijuana as a way to introduce people to meth and get them addicted to [it]."

Leslie Braithwaite is an addiction and trauma counsellor and the
program coordinator at the Abbotsford Addiction Centre, and said she
is seeing more and more parents describing children with meth-like
addiction symptoms coming in for counselling.

"Children will say, 'You know, it's not really like a drug, it's just
marijuana.' But, it isn't just marijuana any more," she said.

Half a dozen kids found unconscious in a Victoria-area park almost
died from overdosing on meth and were in hospital for three days,
McLaughlin said.

"These were children in Grade 6, 7 and 8," he said. "When the pills
were analysed [by police], they were found out to be 100-per-cent
meth, sold [to these kids] as ecstasy."

Gross said incidents like the Victoria park overdoses involving
children in Grade 6 are becoming more common.

"We are seeing kids younger than 12 [for counselling]," Gross said.
"It's impossible to know exactly what they're taking. It isn't an
isolated incident. It's happening [in Abbotsford]."

Children start taking drugs to be included, Gross said.

"If there is a social group they want to belong to, and it involves
drug use, they may be quite open to it," he said. "Kids want to
belong and there are all kinds of things they can show that they belong."

Filmmaker Andree Cazabon, who will be speaking at an anti-drug
community forum being held in Abbotsford on April 28, said she
battled drug and alcohol addiction as a youth in the late '80s after
being sexually abused at the age of 12. She said she fell into gangs
and juvenile prostitution as a method of coping with what happened to
her. She explained that, in order for the drug trade to flourish, the
ideal addict is usually between the ages of 12 and 15, since a
developing brain is most likely to get hooked.