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. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom