DECLINE IN METH USE REPORTED

The Meth Message Might Be Getting Through.

Addictions workers are noticing what they perceive to be a plateau in
the use of the highly addictive, highly damaging, inexpensive street
drug called crystal methamphetamine.

It is a drug that even hardened drug users, top-level policing
officials and health-care professionals call particularly nasty.

Locally, documentary films have been made about meth, solicitor
general John Les held a packed public forum at UNBC on the issue, the
RCMP has held officer training sessions on it and the grassroots
effort to raise awareness was urgent.

"We seem to have seen -- and I am very cautious about this -- that
the use of meth has peaked and slightly diminished," said Andrew
Burton, Northern Health's drug prevention co-ordinator, one of the
front line workers who have expressed this observation.

"You don't want to say meth use is on the decline because it could go
up again tomorrow, not all the factors are controlled, but we have
seen some good things."

The attitude of users is the biggest difference, the advocates said,
on top of a loud public-awareness campaign.

"When you talk to young people on the street, they're saying 'meth:
that stuff is f-ed up' which is very different from what we were
hearing five or six years ago," Burton said.

"A lot of the low-life gang people were selling the drug but they
were also selling a story about it. For young people who aren't all
that experienced with drug use, they believed it, and before they
realized that was a lie they were deeply involved.

"Partly, education and awareness is getting out there. Some of that
is to do with those of us in our position, but almost all the credit
belongs to young people, they aren't stupid and when they see lives
fall apart among their friends, they notice."

But meth is still a major drug of choice on the city's streets and
schoolyards, Burton said, and RCMP Staff Sgt. Tom Bethune agreed.

"I wouldn't break out the balloons and celebrate," he said. "One
person hooked on it is too many; it is a terrible drug. I'm a little
surprised by this, to be honest."

He said the main drug Mounties are encountering in their
investigations is crack cocaine, some powder cocaine and heroin, but
indeed a significant amount of meth is in the local drug system. He
doesn't deny a downturn may be in effect, but worries it can go back
the other way if only a few simple factors change.

"I don't know if it is just a supply thing or a temporary thing, I
don't know," Bethune said. "They had a big bust, huge, south of town.
(A meth lab capable of producing more than 50 kilograms of meth per
month was busted near 100 Mile House in May.) I don't know if that
had anything to do with it. You'd think (crooks) could boil up meth
faster and cheaper than producing crack."

Government and everyday citizens need to invest money and energy into
saving youth from addiction well before it happens, in addition to
bold follow-up for those who are already addicted, the advocates agreed.

Burton said: "We need to address the underlying issues. Ensure people
have the opportunities to do things, to achieve things, to be strong,
to learn good skills. When you deal with kids who are heavily drug
involved, the ones that get lost in their drug use, what you find is
a sense of helplessness, that they are being powerlessly carried
along by life, they have no hope that their life is going to get any
better, they feel like they don't have any value as a person. It is
that mindset that brings drugs in.

"If we work towards that, so even the most marginalized people feel
valued and hopeful, the drug use will go down. They will have better
resistance skills. They will have better things to do."