YOUTH DRUG USE INCREASING

Chuck Doucette has a passion for drugs.

Not taking them, that is, but stopping people from starting and denouncing
the claims put forward by the pro-legalization movement.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Doucette has 31 years on the force and was in Deroche
earlier this month to share his years of insight on the effects of drugs on
families and communities.

Doucette spoke for just over two hours to about 50 people at Deroche
community hall.

"The current situation is that more young people are doing drugs," he
began. "The battle was being won up until 1989 but in the last few years,
usage has increased."

Drugs are easier to buy, cheaper and more potent than ever before
furthering exacerbating an already bad problem.

"Approximately 80 per cent of crimes are directly related to substance
abuse," he told the crowd.

He detailed the most common drugs and effects on the human body.

Heroin has become a popular drug. Doucette said some young people don't
believe they're junkies if they smoke their drugs therefore heroin's
smokability makes it attractive to those wanting a high.

Unfortunately, says Doucette, smoking heroin is actually worse than injection.

"You get a higher high from smoking as the drugs go straight to your
brain," he said.

And since this destructive drug can be smoked, many people who are now
addicted said they started with marijuana.

"It's an easier jump from smoking pot to heroin," explained Doucette.

Other substances topping the list in popularity are crack cocaine, pot,
steroids and the increasingly-used "club drugs."

These are typically speed, ecstacy, PCP and MDA.

"Ecstacy is really becoming a problem. Most kids have no idea what they're
taking at raves," he said. From drugs seized at raves, police have seen
that less than one-quarter of ecstasy (pills) contains ecstasy. "Most of it
is a mix."

RCMP have also recorded a rapid increase in methamphetamines, or crystal meth.

"It's like coke, but it's more addictive, (users) get a bigger high and
it's cheaper," Doucette said.

Marijuana is still popular and it's not as mild and innocent as some people
believe.

Many individuals believe pot isn't addictive -- not true, said Doucette.

"Pot is stored in the body's fatty cells and when someone stops smoking,
(marijuana) is released slowly, like the nicotine patch," he said.

The RCMP officer said statistics show pot users are 85 times more likely to
use cocaine.

Pot's effects last two to four hours and THC can be detected for up to 30 days.

"Pot is physically and psychologically addictive," said Doucette.

"It takes a week for your body to get back to normal."

Marijuana impairs coordination, depth perception, motivation,
concentration, short-term memory, logical thinking, increases the risk of
schizophrenia and impairs the immune system.

"The impairment lasts longer than the high," he mentioned.

But where do some eventual addicts start?

First use of alcohol is at 12 years old; tobacco, 10; marijuana, 12; and,
club drugs at 15, say RCMP statistics.

By Grade 8, 77 per cent of students have tried alcohol, 59 per cent have
tried cigarettes and approximately one-third have experimented with pot.

And the numbers aren't much better four years later, showed Doucette.

Student survey numbers indicate by Grade 12, 76 per cent of students have
smoked tobacco, 93 per cent used alcohol and 64.5 per cent used pot.

But substance abuse isn't just a fad in adolescence.

Doucette said 80 per cent of addicts are employed contributing to several
costs to the workplace including a higher rate of injuries, increased
health costs, a loss of productivity and damage to equipment.

Aside from organized crime, sophisticated traffickers, lack of resources
and coordination for prevention and lax public attitudes, one of the major
reasons abuse has climbed again is the marijuana pro-legalization movement,
claims Doucette.

The first step legalization proponents take, he said, is to attempt to
convince the public to look at marijuana as a medicine.

"But no legitimate organization endorses this claim," he said. "Every other
drug used today has been approved by proper science."

Why hasn't marijuana been put through the same paces, he asked. Social
acceptance of marijuana has helped boost use also.

"What people don't realize is how much higher the potency is," he told the
crowd. Pot grown decades ago had a THC level anywhere from one to three per
cent. "Now it's up to 15 to 20 per cent. Sometimes in the high 20s. There's
no comparison."

Doucette also brought forward a statistic relating how two-thirds of people
serving jail time, admitted they committed their crimes while stoned or drunk.

His talk moved over to harm reduction where he rebuffed the effectiveness
of needle exchange programs and disputed how safe injection sites are
supposed to improve the drug problem.

"The needle exchange program in Vancouver's downtown eastside is the
longest running and the biggest," he said. "But that area still has the
highest level of hepatitis C in the country."

Many pro-legalization arguments use Frankfurt, Germany's safe injection
sites up as the example for its effectiveness. These arguments point to a
50 per cent drop in overdoses since the inception of safe injection sites,
but this just isn't accurate, claimed Doucette.

Frankfurt had a massive drug problem in the 1980s. A park ringed the
downtown district where city planners wanted to establish a world banking
district. This park was filled with drug users so the government took steps
to move the addicts from the area.

The first step was assigning hundreds of police officers (Germany has a
national policing force, similar to the RCMP) to the area. Their job was to
kick addicts out of the park and any non-resident drug users were kicking
right out of the city.

Following this, treatment methods such as methadone and social housing was
put in place.

By 1993, the park was clean, said Doucette. The overdose rate dropped by 50
per cent by '93, but the addicts were moved into three other areas,
including a red light district-type location.

Then, in December 1994, safe injection sites were created. Therefore, said
Doucette, overdose rates dropped, but obviously not because of the
introduction of injection sites.

These sites also didn't clean up the surrounding area because as people
lined up to get in, most started using their drugs out in the open -- same
as before.