Pubdate: Mon, 19 Nov 2007
Source: Prince George Citizen (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Prince George Citizen
Contact:  http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/350
Author: Frank Peebles, Citizen Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada)

FORUM HIGHLIGHTS DEPTHS OF METH DESPAIR

Crystal methamphetamine (meth) addiction is so powerful, chronic 
users will attempt to render their own urine to re-ingest the 
superdrug, said a pair of leading meth antagonists at a public forum 
in Prince George, on the cusp of National Addictions Awareness Week.

"They even smoke their scabs," said Marilyn Erickson who, with Mark 
McLaughlin, represented the B.C. Crystal Meth Society at an all-day 
series of meth education seminars on Thursday, kicking off the 
awareness campaign running all this week across Canada.

Erickson said the aggression, dangerous delusions, brain decay and 
physical deformity caused by meth use even scared her, a chronic 
crack user now in recovery.

McLaughlin, whose daughter was recently surviving on the streets of 
Victoria as a meth addict but is now home trying to recover, added 
that governments need to catch up to the effects of the drug and 
fast, or more lives will be lost, and social costs will rise also.

"The criminal justice system becomes the healthcare system of last 
resort," he said. Addicts will commit a major crime just to get 
locked up in jail where they know they can access recovery programs, 
because there are so few rehab spots in B.C. especially for those 
addicted to meth. (Other kinds of addicts refuse to be treated 
alongside the aggressive behaviours of meth addiction.) Or, also due 
to the meth rehab shortage, addicts simply collapse into a life of 
hard crime to pay for their all-consuming urge, which often results 
in them getting busted.

"We don't agree with that," McLaughlin said. "Why not treat it with 
the disease model before you are forced to deal with it as a criminal model?

"The law right now is: meth has all the rights," he added. "The 
parents have no rights, the one suffering the addiction has no 
rights, the drug has all the rights."

Erickson said B.C. is the only province in Canada that does not have 
some form of law allowing addicts to be forcibly held in 
detoxification facilities. As a street level addictions worker she 
has known meth addicts to go to other provinces in order to 
deliberately get themselves into that kind of custody, so they get help.

Dealing with meth and the other street level drugs of its ilk would 
be an expensive proposition up front, said Erickson and McLaughlin, 
but the big initial outlay would more than save real costs and human 
costs later in the not too distant future, if it were done quickly and deeply.

"We don't have a homeless problem in B.C., we have an addictions 
problem," McLaughlin said, meaning most people living on our streets, 
doing most of the property crime and responsible for most of the 
violent crime police deal with, can trace their contagious misfortune 
to drug addiction.

The dealers of meth know this, and they are coming for school 
children and disenfranchised youth especially with everything they've 
got. Everything.

"Most of the ecstasy (another popular drug) seized by police now 
tests hot for meth," Erickson explained. "About half the cocaine on 
today's streets is cut with meth. They are even spraying it on 
marijuana. They put it on everything because it is so cheap and so 
addictive. They'll hook you fast on the stuff that will get you the 
worst, and you didn't even know that's what you were getting."

"The business case for lacing absolutely everything you sell with 
meth is inescapable," said McLaughlin.

The two presenters showed a B.C.-made video depicting meth addiction 
in the words and actions of real meth addicts. One of them gave a 
chilling account of how organized crime operates on our streets.

"They give these girls lots of free meth, get them really hooked, and 
then say 'hey, you owe me a couple of hundred bucks, where's my 
money? So these girls - they have morals and standards - suddenly 
they're doing stuff they wouldn't even do with their high school 
boyfriends to old, fat, hairy men for $10," he said.

The video also showed the physical effects of meth. Skin conditions 
rupture into rampant pimples and pock marks and wrinkles. Teeth rot 
to the root. Lesions develop. The mind believes bugs or crystals are 
coming out of their skin so the addict will pick incessantly with 
fingers or tweezers until they rip into their flesh and still carry 
on, oblivious to the bleeding and pain and certain infection. They 
totter and stagger and slur their words and speak rapidly at all times.

Worst of all, meth addiction costs only a few dollars a dose and 
addiction hits in the first few usages. Frequently, the first time is 
all that's needed to disease the user, turning a typical kid into a 
raving meth-head in a matter of only a few weeks. Because most modern 
teens have been conditioned to believe a few tries of a recreational 
drug is OK, meth is like an ambush waiting inside what they think is 
just old fashioned LSD or pot. The brain damage, Erickson and 
McLaughlin said, is swift, severe and impossible to reverse once it's 
been done.

"They are having panic attacks, nightmares, hearing voices, they 
think they see shadow people, and that is three years later," said 
Erickson of some recovering addicts she's worked with. "It takes a 
long time for meth addicts to come back, and there are some things 
that are never right again in their head."

"It happens so fast you'd be amazed," said McLaughlin, as a warning 
to parents to be involved in their teen's life at every turn, and 
don't leave any sign of personality change to chance.

Parents and advocates were urged to contact MLAs and MPs as soon as 
possible to make the meth fight and sweeping addiction recovery 
services a major spending priority as soon as possible.

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