TREMBLING VIOLENTLY

Trembling violently, a pair of teenage girls crouch on the floor and go
through the motions of pumping heroin into each other's forearms.

Trembling violently, a pair of teenage girls crouch on the floor and go
through the motions of pumping heroin into each other's forearms.

In fact, the two young women are Dover Bay secondary school students
rehearsing a play they helped write about sex trade workers on the city's
streets.

But the scene offers a compelling snapshot of drug abuse among Nanaimo's youth.

On the one hand, there's the group of fresh-faced actors, some of whom knew
little about drugs before researching the play.

On the other hand, there are the ravaged young women they're portraying -
who were perhaps not unlike the student actors before becoming entangled in
a destructive web of drug addiction and sexual exploitation.

But are these just extremes at either end of the scale? How prevalent is
drug abuse among young people in Nanaimo?

"Watch what happens in the next six months," said Nanaimo RCMP Const.
Shawna Kneckt.

"I already see an increase in methamphetamine use, and I anticipate within,
say, a year there's going to be a huge, huge problem."