DRUG USE HAS AFFECTED KIDS AS YOUNG AS EIGHT, CONFERENCE TOLD

Ex-Calgary Cop Relates Harrowing Experiences

TABER -- An eight-year-old girl neglected, abused and hooked on
cocaine is the youngest addict retired detective Steve Walton has met.

The former Calgary drug cop explained the child's pedophile stepfather
gave her cocaine during repeated assaults and her crack-head mother
did nothing to intervene.

That was five years ago.

"She's still alive, dealing with what happened to her and she's no
longer an addict," he said. "But that girl will never be right."

Walton addressed more than 100 people Friday during the second day of
the Hooked on Hope conference, organized by the Taber Community
Against Drugs coalition.

The burly ex-cop -- who looks more like a member of an outlaw
motorcycle gang than a drug education expert -- spent a decade in the
drug squad and busted hundreds of marijuana grow operations, was
involved in 780 undercover drug transactions and sent around 800
dealers to jail.

"We're starting to produce more drugs in Canada than we ever have
before," said Walton, adding grow ops and crystal meth labs are moving
out of the cities into rural areas where criminals mistakenly believe
they will avoid detection.

Walton says the "big three" drugs remain marijuana, cocaine and
methamphetamine -- in that order, but club drugs such as ecstasy have
made a comeback.

Sexual predators rely on date-rape drugs including GHB, to subdue
their victims and street users have learned how to smoke narcotics
such as percocet.

"Kids are drinking a lot of cough syrup," said Walton, adding another
trend among youngsters is to dip cigars or cigarettes in formaldehyde.
Once dry, the concoction, dubbed "poor man's PCP" is smoked.

Walton says users are getting younger and dealers are taking full
advantage, recalling an earlier seizure of thousands of ecstasy
tablets in Calgary stamped with Pokemon characters.

"The magic age is 13. Children are most susceptible between the ages
of 13 and 17."

But there is hope. Education is the key, he says, to
prevention.

"We have to get them when their young."

Programs such as DARE are invaluable but not every community offers
the drug awareness sessions. Walton feels drug education should begin
in kindergarten and carry on through the grades to ensure once a child
reaches the magic age, they've already had years of preventative training.