CRYSTAL METH PROBLEM COSTLY

Crystal meth is hitting communities hard and it could get a lot
worse, B.C.'s Solicitor General John Les told a packed forum at UNBC
Thursday night.

The province's top cop, Les explained that "crystal meth is cheap,
available easily in any community across the province, easy to use,
but the human cost is enormous. It will cost us dearly for decades to
come if we don't take steps now. It is a nasty, mean, dirty and
vicious drug. There is no question all drugs can be described that
way, but crystal meth is a little more evil."

Prof. Terry Waterhouse of the University College of the Fraser
Valley's criminology department told the audience about the results
of some B.C. studies done on the subject of crystal meth.

He noted that the people caught in meth labs had an average criminal
history of 14 years and an average count of 13 prior convictions for
past crimes.

Another study polled 1,000 students in three B.C. schools and
revealed that eight per cent had tried crystal meth.

"What was alarming to us," said Waterhouse, "was when we asked how
many students used meth once per month or more, the result was seven
per cent. There is no change. It was the same group. Crystal meth
users are frequent users."

With photos, graphs, charts and personal anecdotes, addictions
counsellor Angela Marshall of the Fraser House rehabilitation centre
in the Lower Mainland brought a similar but more personal message.

"It is the most horrible thing I've ever worked with...it takes
everything good and great about people and leeches it out of them," she said.

Marshall described how meth could be ingested in just about any way a
drug can be taken - smoking, injecting, eating, drinking, snorting -
and the ingredients are simple, cheap, legal household or drugstore items.

There is nothing common about the effects, though, she said. The
power of the high, the crash and the cravings produce shocking
aggression and psychological breakdowns, and it also eats the body in
ugly and severe ways.

In addition to MLAs John Rustad and Shirley Bond, city councillors,
school trustees, teachers, police officers, health-care workers and
social workers in attendance, there were also numerous people who
spoke of addiction from first-hand experience.

"It took me 30 years to get to two years (clean)," said one former
meth user and prostitute. "They snuck me in for an extra stay (at the
rehabilitation centre). You're only supposed to be there five days,
but they kept me for 12. Three months is not enough for someone out
there for 30 years."

Another former addict said, "I did it on my own, without the help of
the beds that weren't there. I even slept in front of detox places
and they wouldn't let me in. You're lucky I made it. Being in jail
was better than what was in my head."