Pubdate: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 Source: Standard, The (St. Catharines, CN ON) 117821&catname=3DLocal+News Copyright: 2005, The Standard Contact: http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/676 Author: Grant LaFleche Series: Part 1 of a two-part series Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) CRYSTAL METH: DEMON DRUG It's So Addictive, Users Give Little Thought To The Way The Toxic Chemical Brew Is Eating Their Bodies Alive The first sensation was the white-hot, paralysing pain, as though jagged shards of glass were trying to burst from behind her eyes. She could do nothing but sit still, moan and pinch the bridge of her nose. "I couldn't believe how much it hurt," she says. "I just prayed for the pain to go away. I didn't like it." But when the shards behind her eyes did withdraw, the pain that had left her wanting to die was replaced by something else. Something glorious. Something terrifying. The 19-year-old's body was overcome by a blast of confidence and seemingly limitless energy. Inhibitions melted and she was possessed by an urge to do anything. To dance. To party. To prowl for men. Sitting still was impossible now that crystal meth, sometimes called the dark crystal, was flooding her body. "When you are on the drug, you just can't sit still. When you try, you just start to get the shakes really bad," says the St. Catharines woman, who asked that her name not be used. "The rush you get, it is amazing." When the delicious high wore off in a few hours, she knew exactly where to get more -- bits of crystal meth had stayed in her nose when she snorted the drug. "You force yourself to make it drip down into your throat," she says. "You can taste it and it is about the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted." She would close one nostril with her finger and forcibly inhale with the other, causing bits of the drug to fall into the back of her throat. It was hot, salty and bitter, sort of like grinding up a Tylenol pill covered in old french fry grease in your teeth. The drug's addictive rush was pushing her to the edge of a cliff and she knew it. She had just lost her fast food job over drugs. She was evicted from an apartment she allowed drug-addled friends to routinely ransack. Her straight friends were looking at her differently, at least those who still would have anything to do with her. She knew this all clearly, just as she knew she didn't really enjoy filling her nose with crystal meth. The pain caused by snorting it, and the disgusting taste of forcing it to drip out of her nasal cavity, had turned her into something else. Something depraved and not quite human. "You just want the drugs. Nothing else matters." But the dark coils of addiction and self-loathing do not release a person so easily. "I didn't like it. It hurt so much," she said. "But I didn't care." The next day brought what users call The Crash -- capital T, capital C. And for an addict it's as close to hell as you can get without actually dying. She was exhausted. Her head pounded like a war drum. She couldn't concentrate. Without that devil's crystal to keep her going, she could barely move. So she bought three vials of crystal meth from a dealer she met through friends. The binge that followed lasted for three giddy, sweaty, sleepless nights. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom