Pubdate: Thu, 16 Feb 2012
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2012 The Windsor Star
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/PTv2GKdw
Website: http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Mark Brownlee
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

MDS DECRY 'SURGE' IN KIDS USING DRUGS

OTTAWA - A "surge" in the number of children needing help for mental 
health issues stemming from drug use in the past year is frustrating 
doctors at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, one of the 
hospital's psychiatrists said Wednesday.

Dr. Michael Cheng spoke at a news conference the Royal Canadian 
Mounted Police conducted at its national headquarters to warn about 
the dangers of using so-called synthetic drugs, such as ecstasy. 
CHEO'S experience in dealing with children who use drugs is part of 
an ever-expanding problem at the national level, police said.

The hospital has received so much demand for the services that staff 
have had trouble keeping up.

"As a clinician, I am increasingly getting more and more frustrated 
at having to deal with this problem," Cheng said. "We can help one 
family at a time with different therapies, but we're beginning to 
realize we have to start looking at the underlying social causes."

The concerns follow 12 deaths linked to ecstasy in Western Canada 
since late last year. The latest was a 23-year-old student at the 
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary who died on Jan. 21.

Police believe the deaths were linked to the pills being laced with 
paramethoxymethamphetamine - known more commonly by the acronym PMMA. 
The substance is five times more toxic than ordinary ecstasy.

Police said even drugs people think contain no PMMA can still be 
dangerous. "That's the problem," Mike Cabana, assistant commissioner 
with the RCMP, said in a prepared statement. "There's no way to know 
what you're taking and how it will affect your body."

CHEO spokeswoman Marie Belanger said the number of children visiting 
the emergency room for mental-health issues jumped by 25 per cent in 
2011, while the number of people admitted jumped by 68 per cent 
between January 2010 and January 2011.

Catherine Spanevello, whose daughter, Erin, died in 2008 of an 
ecstasy overdose at the age of 21, said the drug had prompted a 
"national crisis."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom