METH SOCIETY ATTACKS DRUG MYTHS

Education Can Help Keep Youths From Addiction, Group Says

One out of every five students who filled out a survey form after an
anti-drug group's presentation last year said they know of someone
using crystal meth, and nearly half said they know of someone using ecstasy.

"The survey results show just how easy it is to get drugs like
crystal meth and ecstasy and an alarming lack of knowledge about how
easy it is to slip into using them," said Mark McLaughlin, executive
director of the Crystal Meth Society of BC.

McLaughlin presented the statistics to the Federation of
Municipalities' standing committee on community safety and crime
prevention at a time of escalating public concern about drug-related
gang violence.

"One of the goals for the Crystal Meth Society is to stop the
creation of the client base that funds the gangs," McLaughlin said
Friday in Victoria. "This is without a doubt, part of the solution to
combating drugs and gangs in B.C."

McLaughlin's group conducted the survey by asking students to fill
out forms after they heard the group's "Meth Info Show," which was
presented in various schools around the province over a 12-month
period last year. A total of 2,715 students in Grades 6 to 12 filled
out the forms.

More than 40 per cent of respondents showed a lack of understanding
about how drug dealers get people hooked, the survey showed.

It also showed that 47 per cent of students know someone using
ecstasy and that more than 40 per cent don't realize that crystal
meth is sometimes laced into other street drugs like ecstasy, cocaine
and even marijuana.

"From school to school, the statistics consistently showed similar
results," said McLaughlin, who founded the group when one of his own
children became hooked on the highly addictive drug and he couldn't
find any help.

"When you're walking the midnight streets looking for your lost child
and you bump into other parents doing the same thing, looking for
their kids you start to realize the scope of the problem."

Although his own child is off the drug "sleeping at night, and
working," McLaughlin said the problem isn't going away.

Results from the survey also show that 94 per cent of students would
not use crystal meth after seeing the Meth Info show; 75 per cent
don't know of any organizations in their community that address the
problem of crystal meth, and 37 per cent say crystal meth is easily
available. Eight per cent have been offered the drug.

Minister of Education Shirley Bond recently awarded the CMBC $50,000
with a mandate to continue to educate the public, and develop a
"pedagogically appropriate product" for kids in Grades 4 and 5.

"We believe forewarned is forearmed," said McLaughlin. "Crystal meth
isn't just another drug. It presents a clear and urgent danger."

He noted that in Victoria recently, "we had half a dozen young
children overdose on pills that the dealer sold as ecstasy but it was
pure meth."

He said he's grateful his own child is doing better, but he's also
painfully aware of "the other families whose children are dead and
buried in the ground."