Pubdate: Fri, 19 May 2006
Source: Kelowna Capital News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006, West Partners Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: Jennifer Smith
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada)

ADDICTION GRIP THAT'S HARD TO BREAK

Justin Cooper knows there is crystal methamphetamine in Kelowna.

He can smell it in the toxic body odour of his Mission McDonald's customers.

It's offered to him as he works his shifts; he can stop and say hi to 
the same kids he did drugs with downtown.

"I was a pretty good kid before crystal meth-a little mischief, drugs 
that sort of thing," Cooper says.

"Within a week of trying meth I was face down on Leon, gun to me 
head, hands cuffed behind my back."

Nabbed that day for riding in a car with stolen plates, he managed to 
talk his way out of a visit to the RCMP detachment by saying he was a 
hitchhiker-he didn't know the driver, didn't know what he had done.

"I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was going to," he admits.

That was almost two years ago.

Now 18 years old, he counts a 28-year-old with six years sobriety 
among his closest friends.

His social circle is a menagerie of 12-steppers, most twice or three 
times his age.

Connections to regular high school kids went out the window when 
crystal meth dealers walked through the front doors of his school in 
the fall of 2004.

"I would say it's a big problem now and its growing," he said. "I see 
it all over town."

His high school was Rutland senior secondary. Two dealers approached 
him in a school corridor and told him where he and his friends could 
score a "point."

He went to the Rutland area home after school, knocked on the door 
and walked out with a $10, 12-hour incredible high.

It was one of the last good highs he ever got off meth, although 
craving for that feeling brought him back to the dealer's door for 
two weeks straight until his parents kicked him out and he moved in 
with the dealer.

Cooper had used several drugs before, starting by pinching marijuana 
and alcohol when he was 12 years old. He had never tried crystal meth 
until he moved to Kelowna.

"I told myself I would never use it, but curiosity got the better of 
me," he said.

Cooper has no visible signs of a drug fiend.

Articulate and polite, his eyes sparkle with impish youthfulness, 
similar to any young guy telling a story of how they outsmarted 
parents and teachers.

But his teenage memories are far from stories of drawing graffiti on 
the local high school or trying cigarettes at the mall.

Instead, he remembers the day he lacked the strength to use his 
lighter for a smoke as he struggled through withdrawal in his 
father's basement.

He knows the craps, nausea, even bizarre hallucinations at the end of 
meth's painful path. It is what keeps him off drugs today.

"Basically I always tried to use to hide my feelings and to hide me 
from myself. When I used it gave me that liquid courage," said Cooper.

Had he known something of the road that lay ahead, he said he 
definitely would have thought twice before trying the drug, might 
have even stopped himself.

This is why he is now working with Kelowna's Crystal Meth Task Force.

On May 23, the task force launches the kick off of its 90-day 
campaign to find a strategy for dealing with the drug.

The event begins at 6 p.m. at the Rotary Centre for the Arts ( Mary 
Irwin Theatre) with a showing of the award-winning documentary 
Crystal Fear, Crystal Clear.

Volunteers are needed to sit on one of the task force's three 
committees-education, enforcement, treatment.

For information go to: www.crystalmethtaskforce.ca.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom