Pubdate: Tue, 03 Jan 2006
Source: Maple Ridge Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc
Contact:  http://www.mrtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1372
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada)

CONFESSIONS OF A METH HEAD

A crystal meth addict who fed his habit by stealing cars, breaking
into apartment storage lockers and engaging in mail fraud vowed to
turn from his wicked ways only after receiving a relatively long jail
sentence.

"I've been going in and out of remand - it's just been retarded," said
the 23-year-old man, who police only identified as "Darren."

"I've been arrested so many times, so many occasions, and I've just
been released a couple hours later and it did nothing for me," Darren
told police, in a video prepared by Cpl. Tim Shields of the Integrated
Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT).

Darren first tried crystal meth at age 15 and within two years was a
proficient car thief.

"Crystal meth stole my life. It stole my relationship with myself," he
said, adding the drug turns users into "the walking dead.

"It sucks out your happy thoughts, is what it does."

He said he's stolen maybe 1,000 cars in his life - as many as 30 per
day, throughout the Lower Mainland. He's never held a drivers'
licence, and felt "power" knowing he could steal a car in 25 seconds,
calling it "an addiction of its own."

He said he's started numerous police chases and almost hit a child
once.

"I've put lots of people in danger," he admits.

"I would probably kill somebody to get away, not thinking that I'm
gonna kill somebody, but I would've killed somebody to get away.
That's the sad part. It wouldn't have hit me until I'm in jail for
murder."

For that reason, says Shields, police want auto theft reclassified
from property crime to violent crime because of "intense risk" posed
to public safety.

Fortunately for society, Darren met his Waterloo in North Surrey last
July 1st when he was arrested after stealing a bait car to cap off a
nine-day meth binge.

A video taken from a camera planted inside the car shows him driving
like a maniac to get away from police.

"F--ers!" he yells above blaring cop sirens. "They bait-car'd my
ass!"

He bailed from the car after driving through a school yard, leaving
the car to coast into a fence.

Darren was sentenced to six months in jail, but served
five.

Shields let him see the video for himself on Wednesday.

"Man I look like a retard," Darren said, watching the footage for the
first time. "What the hell am I doing?"

"I'm just not going to be like that any more," he vowed, after eight
years of car-thieving. "I've got to stop that before I'm dead, because
I will die."

During the video Darren discusses what kinds of cars thieves go for
and why. He says thieves don't like immobilizers and are scared of
alarms with blinking blue lights because they tend to be "highly sensitive."

Shields said there's no outstanding charges against Darren and added
he wasn't offered any inducements to participate in the video.

"There was absolutely no reward in it for this young man," Shields
said.

"It's interesting to note that he's been in and out of the court
system for the past eight years but it was finally when he got a long
sentence, that was the turning point in his life to separate him from
his addiction to drugs."

Shields said police arrest the same thieves "over and over
again."

"With some addicts, the only way they'll be able to distance
themselves from the drug is if they are forced, through custody, to
have a separation from the drug. It seems like that's the only time
they actually start to think clearly."

Darren's story is the norm rather than the exception, he
said.

"There's nothing that makes them different, inherently, from anybody
else with the exception of the fact that they tried a wickedly evil
drug and were somewhat instantly addicted to it."

Shields said B.C.'s bait car program has been "extremely
successful."

It started as a pilot project in Vancouver in 2002 and has since
expanded throughout the Lower Mainland and to Vancouver Island, the
Okanagan Valley and Kamloops.

"It is now the largest baitcar program in North America and possibly
the world," Shields said. 
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