METH TEAM READY FOR ACTION

Close to 100 people divided among 10 committees from three task forces were
given 60 days to come up with multiple solutions to a single problem that
threatens to tear up the moral fabric of a community: Crystal meth.

By all accounts, it is a cheap, addictive and toxic drug capable of causing
mental illness, even death. It is intimately linked to crime and
homelessness. It has been said that up to 90% of the 50 or so people living
on the streets of Maple Ridge are meth users.

There are known flop houses around town where crystal meth is available.
Just this past week police found a meth lab at the same Maple Ridge
residence for the second time in two months.

Police acknowledge that dealers give meth away free, trying to hook future
clients. A young man who had been reported missing by his family earlier
this year and found dead by a creek in the downtown area was apparently
addicted to meth.

Some people claim that young women are being treated as sex slaves in
exchange for crystal meth.

Gord Robson calls it an epidemic. "We've got to do something now," he said.

Robson is a member of the Meadowridge Rotary Club. His wife, Mary, is the
club's president.

It was her idea to form the crystal meth task force.

A year ago she met a young women at the Salvation Army emergency shelter in
downtown Maple Ridge. This young woman was pregnant and addicted to crystal
meth. Mary supported the young woman through drug treatment and mentored
her through pregnancy.

She stood between this young woman and a social worker in the delivery
room, as Gord tells it, refusing to let the baby be taken away. The baby is
now 10 months old, healthy. Her name is Mary, after her godmother.

Through that experience, Mary Robson decided that during her one-year term
as Rotary Club president her goal would be to educate children about the
dangers of this drug.

She formed the task force. It includes representatives from the local
police detachment, school board, both local councils, drug and alcohol
treatment services and other community groups, like the Salvation Army.

They met for the first time on July 29 and split up into three groups:
education; addiction and enforcement. Each group splintered into three or
four committees, all with their own mandate: to come up with a plan within
60 days to stop the use and abuse of crystal meth. Time is almost up.

The 10 committees and their 100 or so members will all meet to go over
their plans on Thursday, then present them to the public Sept. 30 at the
Arts Centre and Theatre, 4 p.m.

The plans are to be put into action during the following two months.

A key part of the plans, Robson said, is to expedite the process of getting
drug addicts into detox and rehab beds. It takes two to three weeks, as it
is now. By then it is often too late, said Robson, a volunteer at the
Salvation Army.

As part of the application process to get into detox, clients must provide
letters from their banks disclosing financial information, like tax returns
from the past two years.

Drug-addicted street people don't have bank accounts, Robson said, nor to
they file taxes. They are no longer competent enough to even do so because
of meth abuse, he added.

Another important part of the plan is post-treatment. Some meth users
suffer from co-concurrent disorder, which means they have a mental illness
like schizophrenia as well as an addiction.

"We have a bunch of these people in town," Robson said.

In the past, such people were housed in institutions. There is no place for
them now, he said. The task force, however, is trying to develop a
fostering or assisted-living program for them. It could involve purchasing
a house.

Robson expects the meth problem in Maple Ridge will only get worse if
something isn't done now. "It's costing the community in so many ways,
including our moral fabric," he said. "If we don't do something, it's going
to change the way we live."