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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom