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