Pubdate: Wed, 28 Apr 2004
Source: Victoria News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2004 Victoria News
Contact:  http://www.vicnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1267
Author: Don Descoteau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH MENACE WORRIES POLICE

Crystal meth. Also known as jib or ice. It would probably look cool 
rattling around inside a kaleidoscope.

Inside the human body it does horrific things. And it's invading Victoria 
young people in numbers that are making police and health officials sit up 
and take notice.

Victoria police Sgt. Darren Laur has worked in the city, primarily 
downtown, for 17 years. He's seen a lot of things come down the pipe, so to 
speak.

The increasing availabilty of crystal meth, used by at least 30 members of 
the city's downtown street population, has him worried. "It's a horrible, 
horrible drug. Of all the drugs that I've been dealing with down here in 
the core for the past 17 years, this one is causing me some concern," he said.

The drug, either heated up and the vapour inhaled or melted down and 
injected, alters users' sense of normalcy, Laur said.

He recalled seeing one young man taking a puff from a glass pipe that, like 
many users, he had manufactured out of a regular glass tube. As the man 
fired up his miniature butane torch - the lighter of choice for meth 
smokers - and heated up the chemical, Laur could see his fingers turning 
red from the heat.

"He didn't even care, he was that focused on the drug."

Laur said city police haven't seen crystal meth used in the open as much as 
has been the case in Vancouver, a situation that mirrors cocaine use in the 
city.

Nonetheless, he remains concerned.

Laur told Victoria city councillors last week that cocaine and heroin users 
are generally staying away from crystal meth. On the other hand, those 
using crystal meth have said they stick with it because of the low cost.

Twenty dollars worth of cocaine will keep a person high for about 30 to 40 
minutes, he said, while a $10 "point" of crystal meth can last for eight hours.

"The problem is, they don't truly understand the neurotoxicity of it," Laur 
said.

The dangerous thing about people using crystal meth, Stanwick said, is you 
can't tell who is going to wind up with permanent brain damage and who isn't.

"There's nothing we can do to bring those young people's brains back to 
where they were before they started taking it," Stanwick said.

Even detoxing from crystal meth takes longer than other drugs, Stanwick 
said. "The way our treatment regimes are set up, it sometimes takes 17 to 
18 days for these kids to begin taking control of their lives."

Earlier this year, the local youth detox centre increased its service to 
provide four beds 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Stanwick said, 
however, it's not whether the region has the capacity to handle more detox 
patients, it's whether the community is able to respond to this new challenge.

"I think we've started to make a lot of progress in the four pillars 
approach. I think we're starting to see a shift in community attitude," he 
said.

A large part of the four pillars approach - embraced in Vancouver and being 
looked at in Victoria - involves early education.

"What we have to look at is why is it so attractive, why do we have this 
attraction to beauty and thinness. I think a lot of the issues has to be 
taken back to rearing kids that have that resourcefulness."

Laur agrees that hard-hitting education is the key to getting through to 
youth. He occasionally speaks in schools about the dangers of drug use and 
said there may be great value in bringing in a recovering addict to talk to 
young people.

"We can't pull any punches. If we treat it in a p.c. way they're going to 
treat it as garbage and not take anything from it- If we don't educate our 
youth properly and truthfully and honestly, then guess what? They're going 
to dabble in this drug."

 >From an enforcement standpoint, Laur said most busts for dealing crystal 
meth have taken place in the 800 and 900 block of Pandora Avenue.

"I don't think they're cooking it locally yet," he said. "I think a lot of 
the crystal meth we're dealing with here on Vancouver Island is coming from 
the Mainland, much like most of our other drug supplies other than marijuana."

The Medical Post reported this month that the RCMP raided 40 crystal meth 
labs in B.C. last year. It added that state police in Washington shut down 
1,400 labs there in 2002.

Finding a crystal meth lab here would present a dangerous set of 
circumstances because of the chemical toxicity of the materials.

"It's highly explosive," Laur said. "There have been a number of instances 
in the States where labs have blown up and as a result of that people, 
including law enforcement officers, have been seriously injured or killed."

The drug, once known as speed, originated down the West Coast of the United 
States and in Hawaii, Laur said, and has worked its way north over the past 
10 years.

Cities such as Seattle-Tacoma and even Port Angeles are having serious 
problems with the spread of crystal meth use.

Laur said his counterparts on the Olympic Peninsula have told him they are 
surprised the problems haven't become as serious a short boat ride away in 
Victoria.

A detective who works in the Olympic Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Team 
told the Victoria News of the major problems his group is seeing in nearby 
Port Angeles and the surrounding area.

The detective, who chose to speak anonymously, said much of the product 
comes into the area from Mexico.

"It's so cheap," he said. "We get reports of kids all the time that are 12 
or 13 (using) and by the time they drop out of their school programs, by 
the time they start to commit crimes and fall into our hands, they're 
already addicts."

Coun. Dean Fortin and Greater Victoria school board chair Charley Beresford 
are planning a trip to Seattle to find out more about strategies for 
dealing with the problem there. Drug problems in Victoria, specifically the 
idea of a safe injection site, will be the topic of a forum on the four 
pillars approach tonight (April 28) from 7 to 9:30 at city hall.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager