FIVE BUCKS, FIVE MINUTES FROM A HIGH

Students at A.D. Rundle middle school are just 10 minutes away from a
hit of ecstasy. And students at Sardis secondary and Chilliwack
Secondary aren't too far behind.

Several of Chilliwack's youth head to the pedestrian tunnel at
Macintosh and Edwards to score their next high, while others are
getting their preferred choice of drugs from friends, acquaintances
and strangers. They're getting them at parties, they're getting them
from people they meet off the web, some are even getting them at school.

And how much is it costing them?

Five bucks a tab of ecstasy, five dollars a joint of
marijuana.

"It's not hard to get drugs at all," said 16-year-old Ayla White. "If
you know someone who smokes pot, or you see someone smoking between
classes, all you've got to do is ask them how to get it. By the end
of the day, you'll have what you want or at least you'll know where
to go and who to get it from."

White is a straight A student at Chilliwack Secondary; she's a smart
girl. But still, at 12 years old she started smoking cigarettes.
drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, which later led to more hard
drugs.

Why?

"Because I could get away with it - it was something to do," said
White, who has since quit all those vices.

Experimenting with "soft" drugs - cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana -
is almost like a rite of passage for a lot of teens. Ever since the
drug revolution of the late 1960s, adolescents everywhere have been
prone to test the waters. And Chilliwack teens are no exception.

But are the boundaries now being pushed too far? Is it more than just
experimentation?

The average age of first use in the late 1960s was between 17 and 19
years old. Now, it's clocking in at 12 and 14 years old.

"Kids in Grade 8 know where to go and who to get [drugs] from," said
Adel Klassen, prevention worker at A.D. Rundle and Chilliwack Middle.
"To me, Grade 7, 8 and 9 students should not be able to know where to
find drugs. I should not be able to ask them how long it would take
to get drugs and their response is 10 minutes to a half hour - that
is so scary."

Research shows that the earlier a person first starts using drugs,
the more likely they are to having a lifelong drug problem.

In a recent school-issued survey, approximately 30 per cent of A.D.
Rundle students admitted to participating in some form of drug use,
mostly consisting of cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana. Sardis
secondary students also listed cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana as
their top three drugs of choice, followed by ecstasy and crystal meth.

A survey completed by Sardis secondary students in 1996 listed
minimal use of ecstasy, LSD and cocaine. Ten years later, it seems,
ecstasy has become a bit more prominent.

"Two years ago kids rarely asked about ecstasy, but now, I'd say
about 75 per cent of the time I get asked about ecstasy in a CAPP
[Career and Personal Planning] presentation," said Klassen. "Kids
hear bad things about crystal meth and they know that cocaine and
heroin are the hard drugs, the druggies or addicts drugs, not a kids
drug.

"Ecstasy seems to be the safest drug in their mind and it's easy to
get. But they don't realize that there's a lot of crystal meth in
ecstasy."

In fact, crystal meth can be laced in just about everything.
Marijuana - the once-considered "harmless" drug - is often laced with
crystal meth. Popular hallucinogens like LSD and PCP are also often
laced with crystal meth.

"I know a lot of people who smoke weed," said 17-year-old Nadia
Bronk. "But personally, I don't really know anybody who's doing meth."

Last year Sardis secondary removed six of its students from the
school due to on-school drug or alcohol related incidences - this
year, it's removed five so far. Chilliwack Secondary has removed 25
of its students due to drug and alcohol related incidences this
year, a considerably higher percentage from its average of 12 to 18
students in the past.

"Do we have a problem with drugs? Every school has a problem with
drugs," said CSS principal Brett Lawreson. "If one kid is doing
drugs, it's a problem."

But it's not just a school problem, it's a community
problem.

In 2002, the total cost of substance abuse to Canada's economy -
according to a study released last year by the Canadian Centre on
Substance Abuse - was $39.8 billion.