Crystal Meth Epidemic....From the Legislature
Date: Wednesday, June 08 @ 18:05:32 PDT
Topic: Government


from Mar 5 Hansard/ BC Legislature

R. Hawes: Today I want to talk about what I see as a growing epidemic in our communities with respect to the rampant use of drugs, particularly crystal methamphetamine. We're all very familiar with the drug problems, and we see it every day in the newspapers and on television. We're all very familiar with what's happening in the east end of Vancouver. But some people perhaps aren't as aware of what's going on with some of these drugs, particularly the use of crystal meth.



Crystal meth is an artificial substance manufactured by combining a number of poisonous materials. It's perhaps the most addictive of all drugs, and the unfortunate thing with crystal meth is that often its users suffer permanent brain damage. This is a drug that is poisonous and a killer, and in some areas of our province it is growing in use, particularly among our youth.

Some have referred to the coming of a lost generation of our kids. For me personally, this is so scary, so frightening - the prospect of seeing so many of our youth sucked into the use of this deadly chemical and destroying their lives before they're even started - that something has to be done.

Mr. Speaker, I look at my own communities of Maple Ridge and Mission and what's happening there, and I can tell you that this is a drug that's being used by kids broadly. It's a very frightening prospect, and I want to talk for a few minutes about what the community is doing about it and how they're trying to deal with this problem.

The Salvation Army opened a respite home in Maple Ridge a few years ago. One of the community members got involved with that facility and began to notice that the people who were dropping in there - a lot of them - appeared to be heavily involved in the drug trade and addicted and were also some of the homeless people. So he took it on himself to try to find out who these people were, and he did quickly discover that a lot of these people were crystal meth users.

From there, the statement arose: someone should do something about the growing crystal meth epidemic in our community. That someone was Mary Robson as the president of the Ridge Meadows Rotary Club, who decided that for her project for the year she should do something about it. It was her husband, Gord, that was working with the Salvation Army and first really noticed the problem.

A task force was set up by the community to take a look at the size of the problem and to make the community aware of what the problem really was. When they set the initial meeting of this task force, I attended it along with.. I brought someone from the neighbouring community, Mission, to also attend to see if there were similar things happening in both cities. That was probably the most heartrending meeting that I have ever, ever attended. There were young addicts getting up and speaking. There was a mother of a youth that had been killed using crystal meth. There was a registered nurse who had been addicted for five years.

This is a drug that is running through a community and must be stopped. Through this program, the local Maple Ridge program, the means of doing something about it began. This is a task force that said.. No one likes to sit on endless committees. So they set up a 90-day program. What they wanted was an action plan. In 90 days they wanted their city to be able to do things that would make a difference. So they broke down into three major task forces under the main task force - youth and education and community awareness. There was an enforcement task force, and there was an addiction and rehabilitation services task force.

I want to speak about a couple of parts of this. A part of it is called Meth Watch. It's to remove the precursors for the manufacture of this drug from retail stores or, if not removed, control the sale of the precursors. I'll give you an example, Mr. Speaker.

In fact, this weekend Maple Ridge unveiled its Meth Watch program. They spoke about somebody who came to one of the hardware stores on a bicycle and rode away with three gallons of methyl hydrate on their bicycle. That's a pretty strong signal that they're buying that methyl hydrate for something unusual. When people come and buy three or four or six cases of a cold medication, that's a pretty good signal. But that's what has been going on in our communities, because these are some of the chemicals that are used in the manufacture of this drug.

What happens is.. I'm sure many of us have seen the film on TV of a crystal meth lab being taken down by the police, where the police are going in wearing hazmat suits. They clear an entire neighbourhood in case there's an explosion. That's how dangerous this stuff is. Some of the ingredients would be - in addition to cough medicine or cold medicine that contains ephedrine or pseudoephedrine - acetone; rubbing and isopropyl alcohol; iodine; starter fluid; gas additives; drain cleaner, including Drano, etc.; lithium batteries; matchbooks, to get the red phosphorous; lye; paint thinners. Then there are the others - glassware and all the rest of the things that you cook this stuff up in. When they add all that together and cook it, the danger of explosion is huge and the fumes, I know, are very dangerous.

Often you'll see police going in and taking down one of these labs wearing their hazmat suits. If they arrest anyone, quite often you'll see children in the home. I wonder about that. When the police can't enter without a hazmat suit and breathing devices, and yet there are children in these homes, what kind of people engage in the manufacturing and put their kids at that kind of risk?

What has happened is, through a program called Meth Watch that actually originated in the United States and is strongly supported.. The Canadian Association of Chain Drugstores, the Retail Council of Canada and NDMAC, which is advancing Canadian self-care, sponsor a program called Meth Watch. I'm going to go into that in a little more detail, but I know that the Solicitor General also likes this is program. I'm going to ask him if he'll respond. He's graciously agreed, so I'll turn it over to the Solicitor General.

Hon. R. Coleman: Thanks to the member for Maple Ridge-Mission. First of all, I'd like to thank his community for being the first out of the box with Meth Watch as far as putting together the program in their community.

This all started in British Columbia about eight or nine months ago. A group of retailers and drug manufacturers - those that ran pharmacies and chain stores as well as independents - came to me over a concern that in Alberta they had decided they would put cold medication behind the counter. They were going to have to develop another 200 square feet, at least, of space just to hold cold medication behind the counter in every drugstore in Alberta. When we had that conversation, I said: "Why don't you guys take a different approach? I mean, why don't you look at Meth Watch out of Kansas? At the same time, look at the fact that you should be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The way you could do that is that you, as a group of people, could get together as retailers and decide that you're going to put up a 1-800 line, that you're going to educate the public and your employees about crystal meth and the precursors so that we can deal with it as a society, to start to not only deal with it from the standpoint of being reactive but to actually have a long-term plan for this."

On November 16, 2004, the Minister of State for Mental Health and Addiction Services for British Columbia, at a news conference held in Vancouver with representatives of the Meth Watch Coalition, previewed a program represented by retailers and manufacturers and self-care products that they were going to launch in the new year to prevent the diversion of common household products for the purposes of making and manufacturing the street drug crystal methamphetamine. Crystal methamphetamine is also known as crystal meth, speed or crank. It's a highly addictive stimulant and a growing health and social problem throughout North America.

That day Sgt. Vianney Tremblay of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that it is vitally important that we do everything we can to prevent the home lab problem from taking root in Canada, as it has in other jurisdictions. It is to push back at the fact that people want to set up labs in their own homes to make crystal meth, which is highly toxic, highly dangerous and, frankly, very damaging to our communities.

The Meth Watch program is starting to roll out, and Maple Ridge is the first one out of the box. I would suggest to any member of this House or any community that they might want to do the same thing. The Rotary club in Ridge Meadows is to be complimented on the fact that they're taking the initiative. We could take this across the province now, because we do have that relationship with our retailers. We do have that relationship where they want to be part of this solution. The RCMP have set up a 1-800 line in cooperation with them where any information with regard to large sales of this type of product in retail outlets across the province can be phoned in, and that information can be used in investigations regarding home labs making crystal meth in British Columbia.

The member opposite has already mentioned the whole aspect of how this drug hurts people, how it can ruin your psyche for life - all the health risks that go with it and the dangers to the community. But the reality is that we have a program. It's not something that we have sat back and done nothing with. We actually built the relationship within the retail sector. It's there for all communities to participate in.

As the member says, he's already talked about the precursors. There are a whole lot of them. We should all become a little more educated with regard to it so that we, as a group of people and as a society, can deal with this. We've seen the results of Meth Watch when it started in Kansas and a 27 percent drop in methamphetamine lab seizures in that state after Meth Watch was actually implemented. We know this works. We know it's the best way to go. We were proactive in this in giving our retailers the opportunity to do it, and we look forward to its success in the future.

R. Hawes: Thank you, Solicitor General. You have been instrumental in bringing programs like this to British Columbia and fighting this menace. There are a number of fronts that you're fighting this battle on. I know that we're going to win it, and I know I hear regularly from my constituents that they appreciate the no-nonsense approach you take to this.

I do want to say that in Maple Ridge the approach taken by the community and the realization of the community that to solve a problem like this.. It isn't something that the provincial government can just take on and solve. This is something the community has to get involved in. They need the assistance of the provincial government and the federal government, but they know that this is a community solution. In Maple Ridge the solution that has come forward through this task force is something that can be used in every other community. They are now engaged in making a video that's like a how-to guide for other communities - how to get your community activated and working on this problem.

With respect to the Meth Watch program and the precursors, on Saturday they rolled the program out across Maple Ridge. There were about 70 businesses called upon to get the information and solicited to take part in it. Mr. Speaker, I know that props aren't allowed in the House, but I can tell you that what you'll see on shelves is a piece of paper about that big - a sticker. It might say Meth Watch on it. I know that you can't use props here. For folks who are in a store, if you see that sticker on the shelves, you should know that the place where you're buying does take part in the Meth Watch. They are part of the solution. The retail outlets that will jump on board and take part in this need to be commended and supported.

The Maple Ridge solution is also available. They have a website: www.crystalmethtaskforce.com. It's an excellent, excellent community program. The chief of police has strongly taken part in it, as well as the former fire chief of Maple Ridge - who is now the chief of Surrey's fire department and is still active in Maple Ridge in this program, designing it - and many of the community leaders, people who work in the drug treatment fields and bylaw people from the municipality. This is a very comprehensive program. I would invite anyone to visit that website to see exactly how they've worked the program and how all of these community institutions weave together to try to find a solution.

This is a drug that's attacking our kids. It's leaving kids brain-damaged for life. The people who manufacture and distribute this stuff don't care about our kids. We need to wage war back. We need a war against them and a war against this insidious drug. I'm just so happy and so proud of the Maple Ridge Rotary and the folks who have served on this task force in my community and worked so hard to see it come to life for the community. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it, Mr. Speaker.





This article comes from CrystalMethBC - Meth Information Website
http://crystalmethbc.com

The URL for this story is:
http://crystalmethbc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13