Pubdate: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2003 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Daphne Bramham Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) Note: Part 2 of 2. Read part 1 at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1510/a01.html CRYSTAL METH IS A RECIPE FOR MAYHEM Second of two parts One of the few places where crystal meth isn't the drug of choice is Vancouver's notoriously drug-addled Downtown Eastside. Ironically, cocaine and heroin dealers have kept it out to protect their well-established supply lines, distribution systems and large client base, according to Inspector Kash Heed, who until recently was head of the Vancouver police department's narcotics unit. But everywhere else in the province, it is a growing problem. At the Salvation Army's Caring House in Maple Ridge, Gordie Robson says every one of the 90 people who have been in the program since March is a meth addict. They're obsessive, compulsive and violent. Across the province, RCMP Corporal Scott Rintoul estimates there are about 30 meth labs. But meth is so simple to make that it can be cooked up in a hotel room, a family kitchen or a basement and so lucrative that Rintoul figures labs may soon rival marijuana-growing operations. For about $60 worth of ingredients, you can cook up $3,000 worth of product in about 10 minutes. Roger Lake, president of the Washington State Narcotics Investigation Association, says B.C. is where Washington was a decade ago. Now his state has the third biggest meth problem in North America. Lake suspects that police here have vastly underestimated the number of labs because most of them don't know a meth lab when they see it. That was certainly the case when he was working in Tacoma for the Washington state police. "We had cops standing in the middle of meth labs and they didn't know it. They were looking for all the glassware and beakers that you used to need. "But now, all you need is a blender, a coffee filter and a Pyrex pan," says Lake, a founder of the Washington state methamphetamine initiative, which brought together a broad coalition of emergency response people, doctors, nurses, social workers, addiction specialists and others to deal with the state's meth problem. What makes meth so attractive to drug dealers is that it's quick and easy to make and none of the ingredients is imported. Ephedrine or pseudophedrine found in Sudafed, Actifed as well as some weight-loss drugs are the active ingredients. These drugs are sold over the counter across Canada and sales are completely unregulated. The ephedrine is then cooked in a stew of solvents such as paint thinners, household cleansers and red phosphorous found on match tips. The purer the meth, the clearer the crystals. Much of what is sold on the street is either a cloudy grey or beige and that muddiness is pure poison. Ten years ago, Washington police found only 54 labs. Last year, there were busts at more than 6,000 along the I-5 corridor from the Mexican to Canadian borders, with 1,470 in Washington state alone. But Lake says police find only about one-tenth of the labs, so he figures there may be as many as 15,000 meth labs in Washington. The largest lab found in B.C. so far was in Surrey, where RCMP seized six kilograms of meth -- a huge amount when you consider a tenth of a gram of pure meth can produce a 10- to 12-hour high. A few months ago, Vancouver police found a lab in a house in the upscale Oakridge neighbourhood. The house was subsequently condemned as a toxic waste site. Earlier this year, a small lab was found in a high-priced downtown condo, and there have been police finds all over the province, from Mackenzie to Powell River. Dr. Ian Martin, Vancouver police Inspector Dave Jones and Rintoul were among the first to raise the alarm about increased meth use in Vancouver. Along with a long list of youth street workers, addiction experts, health specialists, bureaucrats and others, they organized a meeting last November to talk about it. The result was the founding of the methamphetamine response committee in January. Martin, a physician in Vancouver Coastal Health Authority's Three Bridges clinic downtown, heads the prevention, treatment and professional education group. Jones and Rintoul are both working to educate police and businesses that sell meth's ingredients about the drug. Jones is also working with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority to come up with guidelines for how to respond to addicts. First and foremost, Jones wants to end the practice of police officers babysitting violent addicts in the back of their wagons in hospital parking lots. What he wants is implementation of all four pillars of the city's drug plan -- prevention, treatment, harm reduction and enforcement. Jones is frustrated that there are so few services and even those are uncoordinated. "When an addict says he or she really wants to get off drugs, what they're told is, 'Call here.' So they call and get told that there's a waiting list, but they can leave a phone number. "But they don't have a phone number or even a place to live." What Jones longs for is a commitment to a multidisciplinary approach similar to the Washington state methamphetamine initiative engineered by Roger Lake and others. There, the various agencies -- police, fire, ambulance, hospitals, street workers, social workers and so on -- agreed to a simple philosophy: There is no wrong door into the system. They agreed that every door that opened would lead people to the help they needed. "Here," says Jones, "every door is pretty much the wrong door. Everywhere you go, it doesn't seem to be the right place or else there is no place to send you." It's what the health authority wants as well. "Something has to be done in the coming months because I don't think we can sustain this much longer," says Jennifer Vornbrock, manager of the health authority's youth addiction services. But she admits there is no money for what she wants -- a team approach offering a full range of services. "You need a team to deal with them because some kids have superhuman strength when they're using and you need to take the kid out of the situation. You need a safe place for them to go and calm down and come down and it can take quite a while." Even though politicians have been talking about the four pillars plan for years, there remains a horrific shortage of detox and rehabilitation beds. Vancouver Coastal has only 10 detox beds for youths and the authority admits that the detox units are able to handle only about 15 per cent of the calls it receives for help. But how many more beds? Nobody really knows, because as Martin points out, nobody really knows how long it takes to detox crystal meth users. Nobody really knows how long it takes for rehab either. But some studies suggest that for rehab to be successful, it may take up to six months to a year of residential treatment. Rehab for other drugs is more like a month to three months. "It is a drug with a low recovery rate. The cravings are incredible," says Vornbrock. "A user has almost rewired their brain. It can result in decreased motor skills, loss of memory and decreased physical skills. Out-patient treatment is quite successful, but the addict will probably have a long, long, journey to recovery and the recovery rate is less than 10 per cent." Lake says the meth epidemic can only be averted with a community-wide mobilization similar to what happened in his state, which has resulted in the number of labs declining by about a quarter in the past five years. It meant that old ideas had to be set aside and old enmities between police, treatment providers, mental health workers, addictions experts and others set aside. "It [the meth epidemic] will peak probably in five years if the community activates and does something about it," he says. In Washington, the community was slow to recognize the problem because people had heard so much about drugs that they just didn't believe that meth is as bad as it is and that its effects could be so disabling and dangerous. Then fires started breaking out everywhere -- in mini-labs in people's homes, in dumpsters, freeway on-ramps and even trail heads, where meth cookers dumped their waste. The fires required specialized fire fighters. Lithium -- used in camera batteries and for meth production -- bursts into flames when it comes into contact with water and there's lots of water in B.C. and Washington during the rainy season. Domestic violence skyrocketed as parents became addicted. The child protection service became overloaded with very troubled kids -- not just ones who were meth addicts, but the children of meth addicts. Meth addicts are not only violent and paranoid, they are incapable of bonding with other people -- even their own children. It's because the drug rearranges the brain's pleasure centres so that only sex and meth can gratify the user. Addicts' kids are like the Romanian orphans of Ceausescu's regime. They are completely unable to bond with anyone because they have never been loved. Washington foster parents started refusing to take them because they are so difficult to handle. So what do we do? Legislators need to put daily limits on the sale to individuals of ephedrine-based drugs as well as the other key ingredients, as has been done in Washington. Legislators need to provide money to enable the methamphetamine response committee to come up with a multidisciplinary approach that includes tonnes of education for law enforcement people, fire and emergency response teams so that everyone can recognize a lab when they see it and respond accordingly. There needs to be money for educating teachers, parents, children and neighbourhoods, and it has to be done differently from the drug education in the past. There is probably much more that needs to be done. But we have to do something now, before meth addiction spirals out of control. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin