Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 Source: Windsor Star (CN ON) 3f1-6c74-4977-bebd-a9518b1e1d56 Copyright: The Windsor Star 2005 Contact: http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501 Author: Daphne Bramham Note: Daphne Bramham is a Vancouver Sun columnist. CRYSTAL METH IS A NEW AND GROWING PROBLEM Experts are still uncertain exactly how addictive crystal methamphetamine is, how much long-term brain damage the drug does or even how long-lasting its effects are. But ask Vancouver police, emergency room workers, crisis centre employees and youth workers about it, and they'll tell you that the cheap and readily available drug is creating a whole subculture of paranoid, violent and dangerous people out on our streets. Crystal meth is a problem that began in Western Canada and is spreading quickly eastward, although the folks in Ottawa don't seem to be fully aware of it. That's what was so important about the recent meeting in Regina. Western health ministers urged a range of actions aimed at curbing meth use, starting with Justice Minister Irwin Cotler increasing penalties for crystal meth possession and trafficking. Currently, meth is deemed to be less dangerous than marijuana. Equally important was their plea that Health Canada monitor end-products from the bulk sales of meth's precursors, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. That bid for better monitoring, however, was largely overlooked in the reporting of the meeting that tended to focus more on local initiatives to limit the number of cold and allergy medicine packets drugstores can sell to individuals that have followed similar ones in the United States. Those measures can't hurt in Canada. But the situation here is very different and begs for national action. CANADIAN PRODUCTION Here, meth is big business run by organized crime. Canada's meth supply doesn't come from people fiddling with store-bought blister packs. Here, in all 40 of the labs found by RCMP in the past couple of years, the meth makers were either scooping ephedrine powder of out five-gallon pails or pseudoephedrine tablets out of huge boxes that were purchased wholesale. So, while laws limiting the sale of cold medicines in drugstores might make it more difficult for minor manufacturers, it will scarcely put a dent in the over-all Canadian production. Health Canada has regulations governing the bulk sales of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. But nobody is following up with inspections or audits to determine what those bulk buyers are manufacturing and, all too often, it seems they're making meth. There is also no monitoring of the end-products manufactured by bulk buyers of some of the other chemicals that make up crystal meth -- products like acetone, isopropyl alcohol, iodine, starter fluid, methanol, ether, sulfuric acid, lithium batteries, rock salt and lye. Not surprisingly, RCMP have found that meth manufacturers are very creative. Some set up fake cleaning companies and arrange to buy bulk chemicals that they say are used to mix up their own cleaning solvents. Clearly, monitoring is not a job for a lone, unarmed health inspector. So, the government also needs to figure out which law enforcement agency is best equipped to work with those inspectors before it sends them out. Once Ottawa plugs those holes in its regulation, what RCMP and other experts expect is that smaller Mom-and-Pop operations will spring up to meet the demand with retail drugstores being the primary source of active ingredients. It's then that provincial regulations or local initiatives to get small retailers to limit sales of over-the-counter cold remedies and household chemicals will need to be fully in place. Because if over-the-counter limits aren't in place, experts paint a bleak picture of what Canadians could face. They base it on what is happening in the U.S. TOXIC WASTE SITES There, police have uncovered tens of thousands of small meth labs. Many are literally run by parents out of family homes in otherwise quiet neighbourhoods, cooking up meth using cold medicine from the local drugstore and other chemicals readily available at the local hardware outlet. These home labs are often toxic waste sites or extreme fire hazards. Worse, at many of them police have found children who are either drug-addicted or neglected --some to the point of near starvation, since the meth-addicted parents feel no urge to eat or sleep. Because of that, in many American cities and counties, busting a meth lab means sending in teams that include not only police, hazardous waste disposal experts and firefighters, but forensic psychologists and social workers. The western ministers' case for better regulation and controls was damaged when experts admitted that their report had vastly over-estimated the number of current meth users. While its use may not be in epidemic proportions yet, that should not deter our federal politicians from acting quickly. Stuck in the details was this rather chilling statistic: In B.C., 7.3 per cent of drug users said they had tried meth. While that's a lot fewer than those who admitted using cocaine, nearly three-quarters of those who had tried meth did so in the past year. What that means is that the problem is new and growing. It means it will only get worse if nothing is done to limit supply, while concurrently trying to reduce demand through education. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh