REALITIES OF CRYSTAL METH SHARED WITH COMMUNITY

North Dakota Drug Agents Mike Marchus And Rob Browne Put A Face On
Crystal Meth Monday.

North Dakota drug agents Mike Marchus and Rob Browne flashed a
photograph on a screen in Beaver Brae Secondary School Monday. It was
a 30-something Hollywood, Florida woman who, in 1980, looked like
somebody's mother with a pleasant face and long blond hair. By 1988,
she was unrecognizable with an unsmiling thin face, dark circles under
her eyes and hallow cheeks.

This is the face of crystal meth.

Kenora Police spokesman Bob Bernie, after meeting the drug agents at a
conference, invited them to Kenora, where they spoke to high school
students, teachers, parents and city council.

"This drug is in our community," said Deputy Police Chief Dan
Jorgensen. "All drugs are bad. This one is particularly evil."

Last week alone, Marchus and Browne shut down three crystal meth labs
in North Dakota.

"Five years ago we first started to see an explosion of meth," Marchus
said. Since then, the number of drug labs which have been hit by
police have doubled or tripled annually.

"Hopefully, you'll never have the problem we have," Browne said.
"Hopefully you can be proactive."

Jorgensen said, "We know there are crystal meth addicts in Kenora.
It's highly, highly addictive. It's very easily manufactured. One of
our biggest fears is that sooner or later, once enough people are
addicted to it here, somebody's going to start a lab."

Addictions Services Kenora counsellor Jeffrey Leroux, who set up a
booth at Beaver Brae during Monday's presentations, said, "It's gotten
bad this year. It's really scary to me as a counsellor. A lot of
really young people are getting hooked into it."

Leroux said the drug is used by youths from all backgrounds.

"It's not just down and outers," said Tri-Force drug unit officer
Grant Cowles. Users, he said, range in age from teens to their 30s.
"It's quick, high potency and cheap," Browne said. "If you can bake a
cake, you can make this pill."

Called ice, speed, crank or glass, the drug can be "snorted, injected
or inhaled," Marchus said.

A gram the size of a sugar packet costs $100 to $150.

"It causes the brain to release neurotransmitters," he said. The first
hit is the "most unbelievable euphoric high. You'll never see that
high again. It's all downhill from there."

In the short term, you have more energy, but in the long term, you're
wasted, he said.

Some users go 15 days without sleeping, then crash.

The body will rob nutrients trying to survive.

The effects are scary.

Feeling bugs under their skin, users will pick at the skin and get
sores.

They get delusional, "seeing people in trees," Marchus said.

They also get aggressive and irritable.

Inside their bodies, their hearts are beating up to 200 beats per
minute, 132 beats per minute more than the resting heart rate.

An autopsy photo of a user showed a heart with a hole ripped in the
side.

Users may vomit, get diarrhea or lose weight.

Long-term effects include extreme paranoia.

The drug agents had a search warrant for a shack that had been broken
into by users, Marchus said. The users tore the paneling off the
walls, thinking the police had planted surveillance cameras.

One user called a police station and remained on hold for 45 minutes,
waiting to talk to a police officer.

"I have chest pains," he said. "Kidney souls have entered my body. I
need to have this stopped. Exorcise them."

A user will have high blood pressure, a body that smells like
mayonnaise, dilated pupils, rotten teeth and appear unkempt.

"People don't know what they've got until they lose it," said a boy in
a video shown by the drug agents.

Speaking from a penitentiary in the U.S., he said, "You lose family,
friends, not being able to finish high school."

Beaver Brae student Kendra O'Hearn, 16, said the pictures were "really
gruesome."

Another student said she hadn't seen the drug in the school but
"thought it was."

"The local police told us it's here," one teacher said.

But Glen Williams, 19, said, "I can't see it being that big a problem
here in Kenora. It's not noticeable. Maybe people hide it."

"It's going to grab our young people really quickly and really hard
unless we watch out for it," said Beaver Brae principal Al Wray. "The
whole community has to get behind this."

For more information, visit life or meth on the web.