TOUGH TO LET GO OF CRYSTAL METH

It's been four years since Jeff* has witnessed the shadow people.

Lingering only when he was wide-eyed and sleep-deprived on crystal
meth, the figures drifted in and out of his peripheral vision,
blurring the line between fantasy and reality.

He recalls with a shudder the time he chased what he thought was a
friend through the streets of downtown Victoria, British Columbia,
only to discover the figure was a figment of his imagination. Click Here!

"Your eyesight and everything starts to go. It's very scary. I don't
know how I thought it was fun at the time," he shared with The Mirror.

"What happens when you start doing meth is you don't sleep and once
you've been up for a few days, sleep deprivation kicks in on top of
the high and you lose all rationality. Paranoid schizophrenia is a
serious side effect of it. You get really edgy."

At first it was a party drug, a different high and much cheaper than
crack cocaine. But when he started taking in a more potent amount by
smoking the drug, his behaviour became even more erratic and his life
started to fall apart.

"You know, when I think about it now, I pretty much get sick to my
stomach," he says, noting that it wasn't until he lost his job,
friends and was literally homeless in British Columbia that he
decided to seek help.

"I get goose bumps just thinking how close I came. I've had friends
who have died on it."

Although free from the clutches of meth for four years, the Simcoe
County resident says he knows he could find some by making a couple
of calls. "It's that available," he says.

Midland resident Cindy* laughs uneasily when she admits she is not
shocked that crystal meth has crept its way into Midland.

"Is that bad?" asks the 20-year-old Georgian College student. "It's
so horrible that it's not surprising anymore, isn't it?

"Basically, for the past few years it's been here and lately, right
in your face."

If it's not right in her face at a party or local bar, she knows
where she could get it if she used it. She says she doesn't.

"It's easy to get through bar scenes, through party scenes and stuff
like that. You can just go up in the middle of the afternoon and be
like, 'Hey, can I get some?' Because (Midland) is such a small town,
right? It's not difficult to know (where to get it). Like, I know who
they (dealers) are just from being young and being around."

Cindy's experience with crystal meth has been vicariously through a
few friends, watching them snort, smoke, inject and ingest it, then
experience the intense adrenaline rush that can last hours and
eventually the cranky, sketchy, paranoid behaviour that ultimately
accompanies the lowest low imaginable.

"They'll borrow money from friends and then they won't be able to pay
it back and that leads to broken relationships," she says, adding
that she's not aware of her friends resorting to crime to get it.
"We're not a big town. Yeah, sure there's crime and whatnot, but
people don't go around shooting people for it. Not here - not yet.
But Barrie, they'll pawn things.

"It's big in Barrie. It's big everywhere right now."

While it has eluded police for the most part, the number of seizures
is increasing. From January to June 2005, 2,700 grams of crystal
meth, valued at $245,397, was seized in Ontario, almost twice the
amount of the entire previous year, when 1,583 grams was seized.

Barrie is the only Simcoe County community that saw a seizure in 2004.

"It's very difficult to catch," admits Det. Sgt. Jamie Ciotka, unit
commander of the Huronia Combined Forces Drug Unit.

"Dealers - very similar to crack (cocaine) dealers - don't hold large
quantities at a time and they go through it very quickly. So it's
difficult for police to find those small quantities in house raids.
Most of the time, they're not even there. They're sold that quick."

Police have not seized any crystal meth in the Southern Georgian Bay
area but they suspect it's here.

"It's almost inevitable," says Midland Police Chief Paul Hamelin. "If
it's available somewhere, it's usually available in most places.

"Sometimes it just takes longer for it to get there. Hopefully, it
doesn't come in epidemic proportions, but if you have people who are
users and they find a new drug that is either cheaper or provides a
different effect, then they'll try it."

Staying ahead of the problem is the key, says Hamelin. But, he says,
police can't do it alone. They need the public's help.

"It's a community fight; it's never been a police fight. Our job is
to try to prevent crime and react to crime, but substance abuse has
always been a community issue. It's in our families, it's in our
schools, and it's something that society has to come to grips with,"
said Hamelin.

"It's similar to most issues we (as police) deal with. If you really
get to the root cause, it's based in our social values, our social
services, our support for other people that are dealing with real
challenges in their life."

* Name has been changed.