`COULD WE HANDLE IT IF CRYSTAL METH CAME?'

Since it's cheap, easy to produce and more addictive than cocaine,
many groups in Whitehorse are concerned that crystal meth may be the
next drug on the horizon.

Crystal meth is white, brown or cream-coloured and comes in both
powder and crystal from. It can be smoked, snorted, injected or eaten.

While it has not yet reached the territory in significant quantities,
laboratories producing the drug are spreading across the country.
Demand for synthetic drugs like crystal meth and ecstasy is growing,
according to Ontario RCMP.

Over the past five years, 60 per cent of the drug labs shut down
nationwide were producing meth, police say.

As part of National Addictions Awareness Week, community groups and
residents in Whitehorse will meet tonight to discuss how to prevent
meth from travelling north up the Alaska Highway and to plan what
should be done should it arrive.

"This is something that has been a problem in so many other
communities across the country, and as yet has not reached Whitehorse
in full-swing," said Brooke Alsbury, a member of the National
Addictions Awareness Week Committee in Whitehorse.

"In general, this is a chance for us to be proactive in our approaches."

While there have been reports that a handful of people in the
territory have tried the drug, it does not seem widespread, Brooke
said.

There has only been one small crystal meth seizure in the territory,
according to Const. Rick Aird of the RCMP Drug Awareness Service.

While the drug is not entirely new it was known as "speed" or "crank" in the
1960s =AD there has been a resurgence of use since the 1990s because it's
easy and cheap to manufacture, Aird said.

Sgt. Ian Sanderson of the Edmonton RCMP said the new formula reacts
more potently in the brain.

Crystal meth is considered five to six times stronger than cocaine, he
said in an interview.

It takes about two years of rehabilitation, he added, to kick the
addiction.

The drug trend actually began in California in the late 1980s,
Sanderson explained, and moved north into B.C. and Alberta. Throughout
the 1990s, crystal meth continued to move across western Canada,
through Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and has most recently arrived in
Ontario and Quebec.

The Maritimes and the North have not experienced the drug on a large
scale yet, he said.

"The northern drug markets are basically fuelled out of central points.
Generally, you'll see the trend move from, say, Edmonton to Yellowknife,
Vancouver to Whitehorse from Montreal and Ottawa up to Iqaluit.

"Once it shows up in those major centres, then very likely you're
going to start to see a migration of it out to the seeder points, and
obviously the North is part of that."

Crystal meth is known by a variety of street names including "meth,"
"crystal," "ice," "jib," "gak," "sketch," "speed," "glass," "shards,"
"crank," "tina" and "peanut butter."

Aird described the drug as "highly, highly addictive" and made of
poisonous, toxic chemicals.

"The biggest thing that people need is education on what it is, the
harms of it, so that particularly our young people make an informed
choice and don't try this drug."

Communities across the territory are holding information sessions for
the public and inviting speakers into schools to raise awareness about
the implications of using and producing crystal meth, he said.

"They're taking action right now before it becomes more of a problem.
Communities are addressing it, they're educating their people on it,"
Aird said, noting that prevention begins with parenting.

The idea for tonight's meeting grew from public concern that crystal
meth could move into the city, according to Patricia Bacon, one of the
organizers.

"There's a lot of people who are concerned that crystal meth might be
coming to our community and wondering what we can do about that," she
said. "It has gotten into other communities and has been quite
devastating in its effects."

While the problem may be relegated primarily to certain neighbourhoods
in larger cities, that would not be the case for Whitehorse, Bacon
told the Star.

"We are such a small population. We see things. We see the problems of
crack. We're a small community. Could we handle it if crystal meth
came to our community?"

She noted that there are high-risk youth in Whitehorse who could be
particularly vulnerable to crystal meth use.

"We care about our youth and we don't want this to happen to
them."

Crystal meth is made from a variety of household chemicals including
drain cleaner, paint thinner, kerosene, starter fluid, lithium
batteries, iodine, rubbing alcohol, lye and red phosphorous.

A key component to crystal meth is either ephedrine or
pseudoephedrine, chemicals commonly found in cold and allergy medication.

They are called precursors. A precursor is a chemical that becomes a
key part of a new substance after a chemical reaction.

In the case of crystal meth, ephedrine or pseudoephedrine becomes a
key part of the illegal drug after it has been cooked with the
cocktail of other chemicals.

While it has similar properties to cocaine in terms of addiction and
the types of behaviours it causes, there is a key difference between
these two drugs -- the high from crystal meth lasts many times longer.

While the high from cocaine lasts a maximum of one hour, according to
Sanderson, the high from crystal meth can last up to 12 or 15 hours.

This makes helping meth users more difficult, Alsbury said.

"Because they're high for that much longer, they're not accessing
services. They're not coming to outreach programs to get food or to
get water because they're high and they're not hungry," she said.

"How do we actually reach out to people who are using crystal meth if
they're not even needing any of those services that people that are
using cocaine often need?"

Meth is manufactured by heating the chemical cocktail, a process that
is both toxic and highly explosive.

Labs can be found almost anywhere, according to a community-based
health group in B.C., the province with the greatest number of drug
labs.

"Clandestine labs can be found in apartments, houses, warehouses,
vehicles, wooded areas, hotels, storage lockers other secluded
places," according to the Crystal Meth Victoria Society.

Labs are dangerous and pose a serious risk to public health, according
to police.

"Drug cooks, who are not accomplished chemists with university
degrees, do not respect the dangers associated with toxic chemicals.
This often leads to tragic consequences such as fire, explosion and
environmental pollution," RCMP documents say.

While approximately 95 per cent of meth is produced in larger labs,
about 95 per cent of police busts are on small home-based operations
that produce about five per cent of the drug, Sanderson said.

Each lab, regardless of its size is considered a toxic site.

Shutting it down and cleaning it up requires many police and other
public resources, Sanderson said.

"The home-based labs, in the grand scheme of things, they don't
produce more than five per cent of the drug that's used. But they
become about 95 per cent of the labs that are found by police and fire
and other people," he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

"It takes a tremendous amount of resources to handle them because
they're toxic waste sites and they need to be dealt with in the same way as
a large super-lab that's being run by an organized criminal group."

Police say there are a number of signs to watch for if a meth lab is
operating in the neighbourhood.

These include visitors and activity at all times of the day and night,
darkened windows, chemical smells coming from buildings or garbage
cans, signs of chemical dumping such as burn spots on the yard,
residents who have money but don't seem to work and act secretive and
paranoid in their behaviour, and garbage that includes many containers
of the chemicals used to make the drug as well as coffee filters and
sheets used to filter the concoction.

While preventing the encroachment of meth is a community
responsibility, Sanderson said police have two main strategies for
minimizing the number of labs.

The first is to provide addicts with treatment, counselling and
support to help them kick the addiction before they begin producing
their own meth.

The other main initiative, which is already underway in the Yukon, is
to monitor the sale of products used to manufacture meth with the help
of retailers.

In the Yukon, for example, pharmacists would monitor the large-scale
sale of cold medicines that contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.
Aird said no reports have been made to police so far.

The meeting will be held tonight at 7:00 at Grace Church in downtown
Whitehorse. Residents looking for more information on meth labs can
contact the Whitehorse RCMP.