Pubdate: Wed, 08 Jun 2005 Source: Oliver Chronicle (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Oliver Chronicle Contact: http://www.oliverchronicle.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/875 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) WANTING EVER MORE Anyone who has tried to quit smoking will have an understanding of addiction. Everyone knows the old joke, "Quitting is easy, why I've done it hundreds of times." Quitting is easy for the first fifteen minutes. Then all the treacherous qualities of your mind and body go to work on your resolve to stay off tobacco. The body yearns for some nicotine and the mind starts working up all the good reasons why one quick, little smoke won't really do any harm. It can get worse because if you travel in a circle of friends who all smoke, they add to the pressure to join them. The latest drug scourge to afflict our province makes quitting tobacco look like a cakewalk. Methamphetamine has a number of street names including 'crystal meth', 'ice' and 'crank' but the one that captures its reality is the term 'more.' When you've finished what you have, you always want more. When you run out of money to buy more, acquiring the money by any means becomes an overwhelming necessity. Users, given unlimited access, will use it to the point where psychosis sets in. We have had a number of bizarre and irrational crimes in our valley in the past year that were fuelled by too much crystal meth. These included thefts where the thief was known to and done in front of the victim and assaults that appeared without reasonable motivation. In the extreme, users can be reduced to babbling madness as they pick at imaginary insects crawling on their skin having done irreparable damage to their brains and bodies. Although there have been some successes in getting people off highly addictive drugs like heroin, cocaine and crystal meth, the simplest and most effective strategy is to not get addicted. This is not an easy sell, particularly for parents, but can be made forcefully by those who have experienced and survived an addiction. Getting this sort of testimony in front of our young people can be effective. Parents and other authority figures saying, 'no, no' isn't nearly as effective as a peer saying, 'This is what happened to me.' - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom