800 ATTEND METH FORUM

Sheena Edwards tried crystal meth once. She told herself that was it but
this was at a bad point in her life and she tried it again a few weeks
later. Then she was hooked.

"From then on it's been the worst ride of my life," she told the audience
at Tuesday night's community crystal meth forum. She was one of the
featured speakers inside a packed Evergreen Hall.

Edwards, the 30-year-old member of the Cheam First Nation, was living in
Vancouver at the time with her husband and child. When she began using the
drug she found the rush of energy fun but it didn't take long for her to
hit bottom.

"I ended up just being a tornado and ripping my family apart," she said.

What finally forced her to get help were some scary situations in which she
found herself: being taken down a trail against her will on one occasion
and on another finding some people armed with guns in her house while her
daughter was home. She said she got mixed up with the drug largely due to
problems in her family, both as victims and perpetrators of violence, and a
lot of this can be traced to her mother's experiences as a residential
school survivor.

"I see the patterns still in my community....These are my aunts and uncles,
cousins and community members."

She made an emotional plea to the audience, estimated to be close to 800
strong, that meth addicts need help and that they are worth saving. The
audience responded with an standing ovation.

Edwards was not the only speaker at the forum but she provided the most
direct evidence of the dangers of the drug. Among the others were
addictions specialists, police officers with a background in narcotics and
Solicitor General John Les.

The City of Chilliwack, which organized the event, was expecting up to 300
people but set up 500 chairs. The turnout ended up exceeding their
expectations, as it was a standing room only crowd with people lined up
against the walls of the Evergreen.

"To suggest that we're overwhelmed by the response would be an
understatement," Mayor Clint Hames said at the outset.

Les, the first to speak, outlined some experiences he had speaking with
addicts in Victoria after becoming solicitor general.

"There's just a litany of horror stories but there's also good news," he said.

Part of the good news is the willingness of communities to accept there is
a problem. Les also cited the $7 million in extra funding his government
recently announced to combat crystal meth. One of the challenges though
will be to push the courts and the federal government to crack down with
stiffer sentences for meth manufacturers, Les said.

"These are merchants of misery and we need to get them out of our system."

Angela Marshall, a drug and alcohol counsellor, and Dr. Johan Wauterloot
spoke about the challenges of dealing with methamphetamine addiction from a
medical and treatment perspective. Marshall displayed the large number of
easy-to-purchase ingredients used to make the drug as well as the methods
addicts use to take it, specifically smoking, snorting, swallowing or
occasionally injecting. Her message was straightforward-it's a downward
spiral for users.

"It's just physics: what goes up must come down," she said.

Coming down for meth addicts can lead to anything from meth-induced
schizophrenia, delusions and hallucinations, sores, serious dental
problems, hyperthermia where one's organs can literally cook, a feeling of
bugs on the skin, and many more.

The challenge in helping these people, according to Wauterloot, is addicts
can be treated with a certain amount of therapy but there is no medical
treatment, although certain pharmacotherapies are being tested.

After Wauterloot spoke, district principal for alternate education Jim
Skinner recounted the experiences of three students who got involved with
meth. One had been in foster homes, one had never come to terms with the
death of a sibling, and one has become a prostitute after beginning a
relationship with an older boyfriend who supplied the drug.

"That's what's going on in Chilliwack and it's going on as I speak,"
Skinner said. "My theory is that a lot of kids are overwhelmed, one way or
another."

Near the end of the evening, RCMP members Corp. Scott Rintoul and Sgt. Mike
McCarthy spoke about the issue from a law enforcement perspective,
specifically about programs such as Meth Watch as well as some of the
trends such as younger first-time users, the growing ease in buying meth,
higher potency, organized crime's role in producing it and related crime
committed by users such as auto and identity theft.

"This drug will turn a person who's not a criminal into a criminal,"
Rintoul said.

A question and answer period was cut short by some technical problems, but
that was not likely the last word on the issue. Mayor Hames said the plan
now is for some kind of follow-up by applying for some of the new money
promised to communities by the province to fight the crystal meth problem.
The other next step for the community will be for people from various
groups and agencies to break into working groups to focus their efforts on
prevention, ongoing education, treatment and community support, and
enforcement of the law against manufacturers of the drug.