LEARNING THE DANGERS OF STREET DRUGS

Someone will force you to make a decision about drug use sometime in
your life.

That was one of the messages Detective Steve Walton brought to the
junior high students gathered in the gym at Senator Gershaw School
last Monday.

Walton spoke to kids from Grade 4 through to Grade 12 Monday in three
separate presentations, then spoke to parents Monday evening and
Foremost residents Wednesday evening. However, he said his message was
mostly aimed at kids in the junior high level.

"You have been identified by social scientists as the most vulnerable
group, so I want to give you strategies to deal with drug issues,"
Walton commented. "I see my job very clearly as a drug educator."

"As adults we have to arm you with drug information," he
added.

He said he was always concerned about kids getting information about
drugs from drug traffickers.

"They are giving information from a purely selfish point of view," he
said.

Walton, who described himself as an expert on street drugs, told the
youth a bit about his career as a police officer. Walton worked
undercover for many years, buying drugs from traffickers in sting
operations as well as gathering information on outlaw motorcycle
gangs. He explained that the way he currently looked, with his shaven
head and gold earring in the left ear, was much like the disguise he
used as an undercover officer. He said he was explaining that so the
kids new the police could blend in and look like anyone else on the
drug scene.

Walton explained he would be showing some graphic images to the
group.

"I don't show you these images to frighten you or shock you, but to
educate you," he said.

The first image showed a decapitated body laying below a railroad
bridge.

He explained the body was that of a drug trafficker who had been
trying to flee the police and who'd jumped over a fence, not knowing
he was on a railroad bridge. He fell to his death, and during the fall
struck a picket fence which decapitated him.

"This kid didn't use drugs, but he died from drugs," Walton
said.

Walton explained the various reasons people use drugs, from pleasure
to family influence, and that the several reasons given were compiled
by social scientists.

"Regardless of the obvious danger, some people still use them and it
behooves us to understand why," he said.

He said the youngest addict he'd ever dealt with was an eight-year-old
girl who'd been introduced to crack cocaine by her father when she was
seven. He added this exemplified how some youth are badly influenced
by their families.

Then he talked about injected drugs like cocaine, heroin and
meth.

"They are probably the most dangerous drugs in the world," he said,
adding the method of use compounded their danger because of the risk
of getting hepatitis, aids and other blood-born diseases from the needles.

He said the drugs were highly addictive.

"I never met anyone who just wanted to smoke crack cocaine, but the
graduated to that," he said.

Coke users need to inject themselves about 30 times a day just so they
don't get sick once they're addicted, Walton said. That adds up to
about 20,000 injections per year. He added users try to find places to
inject themselves so the needle marks - known as track marks - don't
show.

Some inject in between their toes because of the good blood flow in
the area and because the feet are usually completely covered, so no
one can see the marks.

"People who are using drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth start making
very bad decisions," he said.

He showed the audience a picture of the arm of a person who'd injected
using dirty needles and from the wrist to the elbow, the arm was
covered with red and black welts because of a viral infection.

Another picture showed the resulting wounds of someone suffering from
'coke bugs', or the drug-induced feeling bugs were crawling under the
skin. The feeling leads to the addict scratching away at himself,
trying to dig the bugs from under his skin.

He spoke about heroin and how it was becoming an alarming trend among
youth to smoke it, in the erroneous belief that smoking it meant they
wouldn't become addicted to it.

Meth, he said, is made of dangerous and toxic poisons. It causes a
terrible rashes, dry itchy skin and poor dental hygiene as well as a
bad body odour.

"When someone is in the company of a meth user it's really easy to
detect because they have a foul odour," he said.

He added that, from the first time the drug is used to the death of
the user is about 10 years for a meth addict.

Walton also showed the audience a video clip of drug users talking
about their addictions.

The second woman shown, Carly, suffered terribly from coke bugs. Her
arm was horribly scarred with an open wound in which tissue was exposed.

0She said she would even inject into the wound on occasion.

Walton said that eventually, Carly died from her addiction.

"If Carly had a crystal ball I don't think she would have wanted to be
a sex trade worker and die at 30 of a coke-induced heart attack."

He also spoke about marihuana, which he said carries 2,200 more toxins
than cigarettes and is harmful to the lung, brain, liver and kidneys.
He said THC, the active ingredient in marihuana, is found at a much
greater percentage now than it was in previous generations, making it
even more dangerous.

"For some reason we don't thing marihuana causes harm. That's just
good marketing on the part of marihuana advocates."

He also spoke about ecstasy, LSD and psilocbins which are all
hallucinogens.

"They get marketed to your generation more than any other drug. They
are cheap and provide a long high," he said.

He added the drugs are obviously marketed for kids, with ecstasy often
being sold in a pill form that looks like sweet tarts when they are
actually a white powder. And LSD is added to food colouring bottles,
making it look harmless as well when it is anything but.

"They hope that when young people see them they'll think they're
harmless," he said.

Psilocbins are also called magic mushrooms and are
toxic.

Walton finished with a story about a one-time user of ecstasy who
tried it at a grad party after being talked into it by well-meaning
friends. She reacted to the drug and died in the hospital 40 hours
after first ingesting the drug.

"When drug use is being decided we have to look at all the
consequences," he said.