COMBATTING CRYSTAL METH

Crystal meth, speed, glass, ice. Whatever you call it, methamphetamine
is insidious.

It infiltrates a community the same way it infiltrates a person's
system: the problem stays just below the surface until the drug is
almost out of control.

But local authorities are preparing to head methamphetamine off at the
pass, raising awareness through an educational forum.

"(There's) very little right now," said Const. Camille Shim-Ping,
school liaison officer with the New Westminster Police Service, of
methamphetamine in this community.

The forum will be preventative, she explained, so the drug doesn't
take hold as it has in some of New Westminster's neighbours.

"Crystal methamphetamine is a problem in a lot of our surrounding
communities."

Joyce Murray, MLA for New Westminster, points out that, in three
years, the number of people seen by medical personnel in the Fraser
Health Authority for methamphetamine use has almost quadrupled from
three per cent to 11 per cent of those treated for drug addiction problems.

"The people that I have been talking to say the situation isn't as bad
in New Westminster yet," Murray added.

She wants to keep it that way and so got the ball rolling after she
and a number of other MLAs were shown a video on methamphetamine in
Victoria and then had the opportunity to talk to young people featured
in the documentary.

"As a government, we need to have a call to action of raising public
awareness of the issue," Murray said, noting the true nature of
methamphetamine isn't widely known.

"It's a drug that is incredibly damaging to people that get addicted,"
Murray said. "It's incredibly addictive, it's cheap and I think
parents need this information about how their kids can go down the
road to drug addiction."

She talked to one of the young women in the documentary who told her
the best prevention is conversation, open lines of communication
between parents and their children.

"The more that is clear, the more we can help our kids to make better
choices.

"This drug is cheap. It's very attractive to kids, but it's also very
damaging."

And it has to start young.

"I hope that parents with children from about nine to 12 (years) come
because that's the vulnerable years when kids start to make choices,"
Murray said.

The forum is important because parents need to be more informed about
methamphetamine, she noted.

They not only need to know more about the drug itself, Murray
explained, they need information on how to educate their children on
the drug and its dangers.

And they need information on resources in the community where help is
available.

But she doesn't want to restrict the forum to parents of
pre-teens.

"I think it's of value to anyone in the community," Murray
said.

With that in mind, she wanted to bring together people from different
fields who could provide that information.

"My purpose is just to get the conversation happening in New
Westminster about what is crystal meth."

There are assumptions about methamphetamine that also have to be
dispelled if the community is going to fight it effectively.

"The association is that with (Vancouver's) Downtown Eastside
demographics," Murray said, but she explained that isn't true of
methamphetamine, which pervades all areas of society, regardless of
age, gender, socioeconomic status, profession, race or religion.

"Sometimes parents don't think this can affect their
family.

"They associate (methamphetamine use) with family challenges they may
not be facing, but it can happen to anyone," Murray said.

"That's what I'm trying to do here is have the community talk about it
in a non-judgmental way."

Shim-Ping explained there will be information from a number of sources
at the forum.

Panel members will include Sgt. Paul Milne from the New Westminster
Police Services, Gloria Harding from Fraserside Community Services
Society, Sherry Mumford, an addiction counsellor with the Fraser
Health Authority and Rock Chalifour, a psychiatric emergency nurse at
Royal Columbian Hospital. They will offer perspectives from their
fields on what methamphetamine is, the dangers associated with it and
how to recognize symptoms of its use.

Parents and other concerned people can also find out where the
community resources are that can help identify whether someone's
having a problem or how to help them once it's been identified.

Prevent the Use of Crystal Meth - A Dialogue will be held from 7 to 9
p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 24 at Lord Kelvin Community School, 1010
Hamilton St. in New Westminster.

It's organized jointly by Murray and a number of local authorities and
agencies, including the New Westminster School District, the Fraser
Health Authority and New Westminster Police Service.

The Purpose Society, New Westminster Senior Secondary, Fraserside
Community Services Society and Westcoast Genesis Society have also
been involved in putting it together.