CRYSTAL METH TOUGH TO BREAK AWAY FROM

If you knew that a drug would cause irreparable damage to your health,
would impact the lives of your friends and family in the worst way,
would cost you your job, your assets, your reputation and end your
career, why would you even think of taking it?

That was the question posed to Harry Ohrn, an addictions counselor
located in Estevan, during a recent interview. Ohrn said that the
risks of the drug far outweigh the benefits, when considered by a
person who has never taken the drug, but once it is used, one's point
of view can be changed drastically.

"The answer to that is that the high produced far exceeds any high
that a person will ever obtain naturally," he said.

"The drug changes the way brain chemicals are released into the body
and those naturally occurring chemicals that bring us a sense of
pleasure are now being released at a much greater level and for a much
longer duration, so the person just really has a profound sense of
being on top of everything, and that everything is going right in the
world.

"Take the drug away, and now you are only 'normal'. But because you
have experienced this sense of pleasure, this sense of omnipotence,
this sense of overwhelming satisfaction, 'normal' seems like
depression. You can never, ever attain that high that you had without
doing it synthetically. You can never obtain that naturally. Skydiving
isn't going to do it for you. Thrill seeking, meditation -- they're
never going to do it for you.

"You're never going to be able to get there unless you take that drug
again, so people being as they are -- we're essentially pleasure
seekers, that's how we're created. We gravitate toward pleasure and we
avoid pain. That's part of our human nature, so once we've stimulated
that part of our brain, and we can't get that any other way, we're
going to want to do it again, and again, and again. Once people are
addicted, once they're in that state, it's really hard to get out."

Adding to the difficulty of getting people off the drug is the lack of
adequate counseling and recovery programs in the province. Whereas
withdrawal symptoms (detoxification) last only a couple weeks for
cocaine addicts or alcoholics, withdrawal from crystal meth can last
up to three months.

"When you're coming down from one of these highs, your body is worn
out from not sleeping. Typically, withdrawal lasts from one to three
months -- and by withdrawal, I mean the physical reaction to the drug
not being there anymore," Ohrn said.

As with alcohol withdrawals, addicts may feel jittery, and may
hallucinate and see things actually not there. Meth addicts, in
addition, though, have a tendency toward depression (having altered
the chemicals in the brain), and during that depression may encounter
and act out on suicidal thoughts.

"If you used it long enough, you may have depleted certain brain
chemicals like dopamine for example that give us all a sense of
feeling good and pleasurable sensations in our bodies," Ohrn explained.

"If you win something and you get a pleasurable rush, that is because
of how this dopamine works. But if you've depleted that chemical --
you're never going to have the high again because you're not going to
take the drug, plus you most likely have depleted the brain chemicals
that give us a natural state of mind. It's sort of a double whammy.
People are going to have a sense of 'blah', a sense of depression.
Months, even years later, they could still have no feelings of
pleasure, and that's one of the most difficult things we have to deal
with, with these people, is that without the drug they may never truly
have joy in their life. That's the challenge."

A first, and essential, step is for addicts to work through their
love/hate relationship with the drug. Ohrn said that most people who
come in for counseling do so of their own volition, and recognize that
it is destroying their life, but at the same time they are so
desperately addicted that they can't envision life without meth.

To make a break from the drug, addicts must work actively to withdraw
from the lifestyle they created during the drug use.

"In some cases the only social interaction they have is with other
drug users; they may have engaged in criminal activities that have got
them in trouble with the law; they may certainly have squandered all
their resources so they really don't have anywhere to live; or the
resources to feed themselves properly. Malnourishment is also a
problem," Ohrn said.

"So when we're dealing with an individual who has been on
methamphetamines we're going to take it pretty seriously. This is
somebody who's very ill."

Most detox programs take only people after they have been off the drug
for 14 days.

"Well, you've got somebody here who may be experiencing some
difficulty for two months, so they wouldn't qualify to enter detox. We
don't have a lot of really good pharmacological approaches to managing
this, either," Ohrn said.

"One of the things that has been administered is an anti-psychotic
called Haldol. Haldol is usually administered to someone that has some
pretty serious psychiatric problems... but it may not be appropriate
or useful for the long term, because it's got its own side effects."

Someone being treated for alcohol addiction may be ready after two
weeks of sobriety to deal with the stringent aspects of detox, like
getting up early, doing assignments, or talking about the addiction.

"Somebody who is getting off crystal meth after two months is in and
out of their chair. They can't sit still, they have trouble with
focus, they can't concentrate on assignments -- they'll read the first
three lines and then they'll drift off. They'll read a few pages and
can't remember what they read... all that sort of stuff is going on,
and it's a real struggle, so often what's happening is that they'll
opt out of treatment, and what do they do then? They go back to using
it."

Overall, Ohrn paints a somewhat grim picture of the level of success
for people who have become dependant on crystal meth.

"They have to have a strong desire to get well, have to be quite
willing to comply with recommendations and have a full body work-up
for the most part, with reestablishment of the diet and learning
skills to cope with irritability, agitation and depression and so on."

One of the only treatment centres in Saskatchewan which has developed
a program to accommodate crystal meth addicts is Pine Lodge at Indian
Head.

"There have been a lot of cases in the P.A. area, and smaller areas
around there -- Nipawin and so on. There are fairly significant
numbers of cases in the larger centres, Regina and Saskatoon," Ohrn
said.

"This has come in during the past year and a half or so in a big way.
So the treatment programs aren't designed to deal with the severity
and challenge of the problems those people have."

Labs have been discovered in North Dakota, and although no labs have
been found in the southeast corner of the province yet, there have
been thefts of anhydrous ammonia from farmyards and from Luscar.
Anhydrous ammonia is one of the ingredients which can be used in the
production of meth. Anecdotal information passed along to the police
also indicates the presence of the drug.

The drug can be made in a very limited amount of space, like a
footlocker which can be hidden under the bed, or in a car trunk. Ohrn
said it doesn't take a lot of specialized equipment to make, just a
hot plate or source of heat, buckets, a tank of anhydrous and the chemicals.

"It looks to most people like a still," Ohrn said, noting that a batch
of the drug is very quick to produce, taking only three to five hours.

Of course, the danger with crystal meth isn't limited to the user. The
different methods of making it vary in volatility. Some can result in
the creation of yellow phosphorus instead of red phosphorus. Yellow
phosphorus explodes on contact with the air. When combined with other
ingredients which may be used in the making of the drug, including the
corrosive (batteries and acids) and the explosive (ether), it can pose
a very lethal problem.

"Most labs are found after the fire, so you've got property damage and
hazardous material from manufacturing this stuff, and you have to dump
the toxic chemicals some place," he said.

"The focus isn't on responsibly handling the hazardous material
produced -- it's on the high that can be achieved as soon as the drug
is produced."

He added that toxic and corrosive chemicals are poured down the
drains, where it pollutes the environment and could potentially affect
groundwater. Police estimate that for every pound of the drug created,
at least five pounds of toxic byproducts are also made.

"In the manufacturing of it you are trying to extract a
methamphetamine out of ephedrine for the most part, so you're not
really adding anything. Say you've got 10 or 15 packages of [over the
counter medication containing ephedrine] -- that's what you're going
to get the methamphetamine out of. All the other stuff, the
hydrochloric acid, the iodine, the phosphorus if you're using that
approach, all those kinds of things are just a means to an end. All
those things have got to be dumped somewhere. It's easy to see how
that could end up as a five to one ratio, if not more."

With all the hazardous material left in the open, it's extremely toxic
for people to go into the sites where meth is being made.

"During a recent presentation on the drug, one of our EMT guys gave a
presentation on what they're allowed to do. If they get a 9-1-1 call
and they go in and a guy's having a heart attack in a meth lab, they
just leave the heart attack patient on the floor and they leave," Ohrn
said.

Officers and health workers are very concerned with children living in
the meth lab homes, or living with meth addicts.

"Because if you're staying awake for 21 or 28 days and not looking
after yourself, how much care can you possibly be giving your one year
old, or your five year old or 10 year old? If you're cooking this
stuff up in your house, what do you think is happening to your child?"
Ohrn asked.

"Some of the vapours produced are heavier than air, and they'll be
collecting closer to the ground where your child is crawling around.
If you take a look at some of these houses where the stuff is being
cooked, and people aren't taking care of their homes... You've got
homes that are just in squalor, you have inadequate resources, you
aren't able to take care of yourself and you aren't taking care of
your children.

"It's not pretty, and I've seen the people who are on this stuff, and
they're not well. I have no doubt that they are in for a long haul.

"It's not a good thing. I don't see anything really positive about
this drug," emphasized Ohrn.

"If you're looking at it from a harm reduction standpoint, I'd say do
anything but meth, with the exception of crack cocaine. Have some pot.
Smoke a joint. Whatever. But don't do this stuff. It's nasty."