CITY BRACES FOR CRYSTAL METH INVASION

Before This Thing Explodes, We're Trying To Get A Handle On It,' Says
Deputy Police Chief

Owen Sound is bracing for what police fear is an inevitable increase
of crystal meth use in the city.

Police have made only a few meth arrests to date, but senior officers
and Owen Sound fire and emergency officials heard last week that the
illegal drug, easily cooked up in dangerous home laboratories, has
rapidly become Stratford's worst drug problem.

Crystal meth and related crime shoplifting, robbery, home invasions
and violence among drug dealers has hit Stratford hard in the past
few years. So hard that that city's police have become provincial
experts dealing with the drug. Some of those experts were in Owen
Sound last Friday to help the city prepare.

"Before this thing explodes, we're trying to get a handle on it,"
said Owen Sound Deputy Police Chief Frank Elsner.

Stratford's meth troubles began about four years ago when a Mitchell
man working in Texas was deported back to Perth County for drug
activities. He brought back a recipe for making crystal
methamphetamine, also known as speed or crank, Sgt. Mike Bellai, who
heads up Stratford's drug enforcement unit, said in a telephone interview.

The relatively inexpensive, highly-addictive street drug caught on
and has become the city's illegal drug of choice, attracting users as
young as 13, said Bellai.

"It's become somewhat of an epidemic," he said. "It's all walks of
life. It could be anybody. It could be the prom queen, it could be
business owners that have lost their business because of using it,
virtually anybody."

Related crime includes frauds to get money for the drug, shoplifting,
theft and robbery. Basement meth labs have caused serious fires and
officers have had to deal with violence and murder.

"We had an attempted murder earlier this year that was a direct
result of the accused being on methamphetamine. A murder that
occurred a few months after that was between drug dealers . . . Home
invasions, robberies, it's just never-ending and it's all because of
the crystal methamphetamine problem," Bellai said.

Arrests for both possession and dealing the drug have "gone through
the roof . . . Not to say that we don't have all the other drugs that
all the other cities have as well, but methamphetamine seems to be
the most popular right now."

Bellai, who spoke to local emergency officials last Friday, said he
planned to detail the Stratford experience for them.

Looking back, he said, Stratford officers probably could not have
done things differently to curb meth's rising popularity anyway.

"We're trying to get ahead of it, but there's only so much you can
do. Are you ever going to eradicate it? No. Are you going to suppress
it? Absolutely."

He said he would be warning Owen Sound emergency workers about the
hazards around the home labs criminals use to cook up crystal meth
using fertilizer, decongestant cold tablets and other ingredients.

"They are extremely, extremely dangerous. It's basically a ticking bomb."

A fire which started in a basement lab in Stratford recently could
have killed a pregnant woman and two young children, he said. The man
who had been making the drug "ran out of the house and forgot
completely about his family because he was a user as well. The
neighbours got them out of there."

Crystal meth has become such a widespread problem that the regulatory
group that oversees prescription and non-prescription drugs in Canada
has stepped in to try and make an essential component more difficult to obtain.

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities last week
ordered corner stores and grocers across the country to stop selling
a wide range of cold and allergy medications that contain ephedrine
and pseudoephidrine, essential ingredients for cooking up crystal meth.

The NAPRA ban takes effect April 10 and does not include pharmacies,
although some of the strongest cold and allergy medicines will be
moved behind the counter and will not be available without first
consulting a pharmacist.

Elsner said the move was "way overdue" and came only after a lengthy
police lobby effort.

Bellai said in Stratford, most pharmacists are aware of the crystal
meth problem and have already at least moved those products to where
they can be easily watched.

Shoplifters have been hired by illegal drug makers to steal the
components and moving the raw materials behind the counter may just
lead to more after-hours break-ins, he added.

Still, "if you put it behind the counter and the pharmacist has to
give it out, that's going to help," he said. "If you have to ID
before you get it, that would help. If they can regulate, that's
great. It makes it more difficult, but unfortunately criminals are
going to find a way around it."

Manitoba and Saskatchewan have already restricted availability of
some products, as have 37 states in the United States.

Elsner said those restrictions have made a difference there and he
welcomes anything that will keep crystal meth at bay in this city.

"We haven't seen a lot of it, so it hasn't got a really good foothold
here," he said. "Our issue is that we're afraid that it will. We're
trying to be proactive and do what we can to stop it."

Const. John Kummer, spokesman for the South Bruce OPP detachment,
said crystal meth use is on the increase in the Walkerton area and
throughout Bruce County, Huron County and Perth counties. Project
Roller, a police operation last June, rounded up almost 40 crystal
meth dealers in three counties and led to more than 200 drug charges.

"If it's not in Owen Sound yet it's coming, that's for sure. It's
around, there's a lot of it going on," Kummer said.