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.'
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom