Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 Vancouver Courier Contact: http://www.vancourier.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474 Author: Mark Hasiuk, contributing writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) A MOTHER'S MESSAGE The low sun of a winter afternoon sparkles across Semiahmoo Bay along the seashore of White Rock. The shoreline, winding along Marine Drive, is alive with joggers and sightseers, as boats float slowly out toward the Pacific. It was in this idyllic setting Jan. 17, 2002, that two RCMP officers appeared on Kerry Jackson's doorstep to tell her that her only child, 26-year-old Ryan Jackson, had jumped off the Cambie Street Bridge to a concrete walkway 30 feet below. Although Ryan was pronounced dead Jan. 14, because of the damage to his face the coroner needed four days to obtain the dental records needed to identify him. On Boxing Day three weeks earlier, Jackson and Ryan had walked that same Semiahmoo shoreline during what Jackson now realizes was her son's farewell visit. "He was telling me goodbye," says Jackson, as her eyes well up. "He told me he had a great childhood, and wanted me to know there had been some good times." These prophetic comments would set off alarm bells for most parents, but Jackson had difficulty interpreting anything Ryan said during the last 10 months of his life, when he was addicted to crystal methamphetamine. The addictive and debilitating drug had brought on a psychosis that robbed him of his will to live. After Ryan's death, Jackson fell into her own deep depression. She retreated to her White Rock home and shut out the world. She was unable to work as a graphic designer and contemplated taking her own life. "The pain was so great, I didn't know if I could go on," she says. Her grief slowly turned to painful introspection about her role as the mother of a suicide victim, and to a desire to understand what happened to her son. As she began to study crystal meth, she felt a responsibility to inform other parents about the dangerous effects of the drug so similar tragedies could be avoided. "Every time I came across a piece of information I knew most parents didn't know, I felt I had to do something." In 2005 she started 20:20 Parenting, a drug awareness organization that educates parents about the potential warning signs of drug abuse. Her message: no family is untouchable. "It's not just the poor kid who has been living on the street most of his life," says Jackson. "This is a problem that cuts across all social and economic lines." Lou DeMaeyer has spent the last 10 years as a drug and alcohol counsellor at Covenant House, a support agency that serves troubled young people in Vancouver. DeMaeyer, who sees up to 10 meth addicts per week-roughly 65 per cent of his consultations-says crystal meth use has been on a steady increase since 2004, but that the highest concentration of meth users still lies within the gay community and among longtime drug addicts and street youth, who are turning away from crack cocaine and heroin to the cheaper, longer-lasting crystal meth. "If you have a drug addiction and it's not dealt with, and a drug that's cheaper and makes you feel equally as good becomes available, it's not a huge leap," he says, adding that Vancouver's drug treatment community has not evolved to meet the challenges of the city's crystal meth problem. "It came on fast and hard and they're still reeling." Last March, B.C.'s Ministry of Health announced a new crystal meth strategy that rallies law enforcement and treatment and prevention organizations to form a united front, although province officials admit they still do not fully understand the scope of the problem. "Nobody has yet put a finite number on the number of crystal meth addicts," says Laurie Dawkins, a senior management officer at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Dawkins says the new strategy will include an aggressive education campaign to counteract crystal meth's growing appeal among young people. Jackson also targets young people who are vulnerable to the peer pressure and low self-esteem that can result in drug use. She speaks at elementary and high schools throughout the Lower Mainland to educate students about crystal meth and other drugs. In Vancouver, the school board is working on a program to be launched next year that will teach early prevention methods to students, parents and teachers. Jackson believes educating parents is the key to stopping young people from doing drugs. She has co-authored a free information guide for parents available on her 20:20 Parenting website that outlines the early warning signs of crystal meth use. But she says her personal story that chronicles the plight of her son Ryan is more effective in getting parent's attention than statistics or a list of possible symptoms. "Many parents don't take action until there is already a crisis. I want them to feel what that crisis is like before it happens to them." Ryan was born in Kamloops in 1975. Two years later, Jackson separated from her husband, who left for Alberta where he remarried and lost contact with his ex-wife and son. Seeking a fresh start, Jackson moved Ryan to Vancouver where she provided him with a loving and stable home. "We were an ordinary family and he was a happy kid," she says. "Ryan never seemed to get down about anything." Ryan's first experience with drugs came in high school, where like so many of his classmates he smoked marijuana. She talked with Ryan about drugs and alcohol, but was confronted with the denials familiar to millions of parents across Canada. "He was very good at hiding things from me," says Jackson, who now looks back on Ryan's behaviour with a more educated eye. "There were some tell-tale signs, but I wasn't good at recognizing them." Ryan began cutting class and was eventually placed in a disciplinary program due to truancy and failing grades. He dropped out in Grade 11 and worked at a clothing store, before finally landing a full-time position as a security system installer. Good-looking and athletic, he was known as a party boy who used drugs and alcohol recreationally. He attended raves and enjoyed the club scene, but it was after he tried crystal meth that his life spiralled down to what he later called his "chamber of horrors." A $10 bag of crystal meth, also known as ice or jib, can be smoked, snorted, ingested or injected to produce a euphoric high that can last up to 24 hours, by stimulating a massive release of dopamine-a chemical in the brain that produces feelings of pleasure. Prolonged use shuts down this brain function, so the addict can no longer feel pleasure unless they are using. As Ryan's crystal meth habit grew, he became more transient, sometimes disappearing for weeks at a time. His phone calls home became less frequent but more disturbing, as he exhibited the psychotic signs of a full-blown meth addict. He shocked Jackson with delusional tales of government espionage and Special Forces training, and at one time claimed his life was intertwined with the movie The Matrix. "The drug was quickly taking over his mind," says Jackson. "It was a terrifying thing to witness." As Ryan's behaviour became erratic, the vestiges of his former life fell away. He was fired from his job and his girlfriend left him. His old friends were replaced by other meth addicts. As he used more drugs, he needed a steady cash flow his welfare cheque could not provide. Broke and addicted, he turned to the street corners of the Vancouver sex trade. Jackson recalls a phone call she received from a distraught Ryan shortly after he began working the streets. "I could barely understand him because his voice was cracking," she says. "He told me that a man had offered him $100 for a blow job and then he just trailed off." Ryan, who had only dated girls, later told his mom he wasn't gay and that the pull of crystal meth had driven him to prostitution. "I said I didn't care if he was gay or not and that I would love him no matter what he did," Jackson says. She pleaded for Ryan to seek treatment, but her cries fell on deaf ears, as his meth-induced psychosis made him paranoid of anyone who tried to help. She sought to have Ryan committed, against his will if necessary, to a treatment facility. Jackson saw her chance in April 2001, when Ryan agreed to meet her for a late lunch at a Milestone's restaurant in the West End. Though he had lost weight, Ryan looked relatively healthy. He had open cuts on his legs due to the manic scratching common to meth users, but he had avoided the facial sores that brand many addicts. Despite his normal appearance, Ryan launched into a rambling monologue of paranoid delusions and conspiracies that confirmed his critical condition. "He told me he was being constantly filmed by a movie crew that followed him wherever he went, and that he also was training as a ninja for the government," Jackson says. She nodded along with Ryan's delusions, noting any reference to his condition or mention of counselling or treatment would scare him off. "I had to be extremely careful with my words, because if I did anything to trigger his anger he would think I was against him and he would be gone." As Ryan rambled on, Jackson noticed a pair of wire cutters poking out of his pants pocket. She knew that Ryan could be arrested if he was deemed to be a danger to himself or others, and she saw the potential weapon as an excuse to call the police. During a brief pause in Ryan's diatribe, Jackson went to the washroom and frantically dialed 911 on her cellphone. "I told them he was psychotic and he had the wire cutters, so they needed to come and get him." She rejoined Ryan at their table and waited anxiously for the police, not knowing what her son's reaction would be when uniformed officers approached him. "I was terrified that he would blow up and there would be a confrontation." But instead, Jackson watched in disbelief as Ryan calmly greeted the responding officers and spoke softly and rationally, even thanking his mother for her concern. The wire cutters were not illegal and Ryan showed no signs of the psychosis he had displayed moments earlier. "He was able to pull the wool over their eyes and talk normally, so they had no choice but to leave him be." Jackson refused to give up, and offered Ryan a drive home in her car, where she had hidden a tape recorder under the seat to capture his tell-tale ramblings. "I was trying to catch him in the act so I could prove to the authorities he was sick and needed help." Predictably, Ryan lapsed back into his psychosis and Jackson placed another call to the police in a gas station restroom; this time contacting Car 87, a branch of the VPD that deals specifically with psych cases. She was told it would be at least four hours before anyone was available. Feeling utterly alone and helpless, Jackson drove Ryan to his Vancouver home where he lived with several other crystal meth addicts. She convinced Ryan to show her his room that was cluttered with a bed, a desk, and all his clothes and personal belongings. Jackson made a final call to the VPD psych unit from the washroom of Ryan's house, and then returned to his room to wait for their arrival. Although the unnerving sounds of the meth house surrounded them, Jackson relished the company of her son, who until that evening had been reduced to a panicked voice on the telephone. "We both lay there on his bed looking at the ceiling, and we just talked," Jackson remembers. "It was so good to be close to him, but at the same time very painful." When the police arrived, the Jacksons were summoned out to the sidewalk where several policemen and a psych nurse waited to evaluate Ryan, and apprehend him if necessary. He met the police with the same calm he demonstrated at the restaurant. "He didn't even seem surprised," says Jackson. Her tape of Ryan's ramblings was not enough to have him detained. "He still had a small grasp on reality and could manipulate people if he really focused." So for the second time in five hours, she watched as Ryan's best chance for recovery fell through. Jackson looks back on that day in the same way she recalls much of Ryan's life. She wonders what she could have done differently and what part of herself she could have offered to ease her son's pain. "I still have those feelings of guilt, that I somehow had failed him. Learning to forgive myself has been a big part of the grieving process." Ryan was picked up by the RCMP two weeks later in Chilliwack for throwing a psychotic fit in the middle of a freeway. He began a pattern of treatment and relapse that continued until the end of his life. "He would be committed to an institution for 30 days and then be released and would immediately start using again," Jackson says. Ryan spent four months of his 10-month addiction in the psych wards of Riverview and St. Paul's Hospital, though the counselling and treatment did little to improve his condition. "The drugs seemed to have taken everything from him, including his personality. He had done so much damage to his brain, he didn't think he could ever recover," Jackson says. According to Dr. David Marsh of the B.C. Medical Association, meth-induced psychosis is rare but the effects can be long-lasting. "Roughly 85 per cent of the people who become psychotic with crystal meth see their psychosis resolve after four to five days," says Marsh. "For the remaining 15 per cent of people who have persistent psychosis from crystal meth, it can go on for weeks or months, even when they've stopped using the drug." In Ryan's case, his psychosis persisted and led to thoughts of suicide. Jackson recalls using her training as a former Vancouver Crisis Line volunteer during a phone conversation with Ryan, not long before his death. "He called me up and I was able to find out where he was and talk him out of it," she says, noting that this was the only time he had explicitly talked about killing himself. She later learned Ryan had practiced swan dives at a Vancouver community centre pool in the days leading up to his fatal leap off the Cambie Street Bridge. Many important details of Ryan's ordeal have been posthumously revealed to Jackson as she learns more about her son, his addiction and what might have saved him. Today, her organization's mission statement is "Our 20:20 hindsight for your 20:20 foresight." Jackson says by helping others avoid future tragedy, she can better deal with the horrific events of the past. "This work has helped me heal... I didn't have enough wisdom to know what he really needed from me. Hopefully I can give parents that wisdom so they don't have to go through what we went through." And all the while, she thinks of Ryan. She sees him at the elementary schools, where the smiles of children remind her of when he was a happy and fun-loving little boy. She is haunted by his later years, when he turned into a man she didn't recognize. Reflecting on Ryan's life is often painful, but Jackson says her son would be proud of her work. "He wouldn't want me to hold anything back if his story was going to help someone," she says. "He'd say, 'Go for it, Mom.'" Back in her White Rock home, a framed collage of Ryan's childhood hangs on Jackson's bedroom wall. In every picture, from his highchair to the playground, Ryan's beaming smile portrays the joy and innocence of youth. Jackson looks over the pictures with her own tired smile, and laments that her son had left her long before he finally died. "In some ways I feel closer to him now then when he was alive," she says. "When they are addicted, they lose their true selves. I now understand his death was unnecessary, but it's not going to be in vain." For information on Jackson's parenting organization, go to www.2020parenting.com. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake