Crystal meth use has spread from Vancouver to communities in B.C.'s interior
such as Kamloops and Barriere. |
The fear
and the alarm are spreading almost as fast as
the drug itself. All across western Canada, in
communities like Kamloops and Barriere, B.C., parents,
addiction counsellors, doctors and nurses are waking
up to the crystal menace.
The drug that is as cheap as it is toxic has
become the drug of choice for young people in the
city of Kamloops. Forty-five minutes away,
in the town of Barriere, it's making headlines
and compelling a small community to take action.
Samantha Mathers
16-year-old
Samantha Mathers lives in Kamloops with her mother.
She was just 13, an eighth grader, when a friend
introduced her to crystal meth. She was hooked
almost immediately. And over the next three years,
her young life unravelled.
One of the reasons she loved crystal meth was
that, as a stimulant, it helped a chubby teenager
lose weight. "When I
started getting skinny I started to get a lot more
attention. And I loved it. Everybody loves attention.
And then I started to look like a junkie." But
once she'd started, the high was so great, she
couldn't wait to do more.
Like most hardcore users,
she snorted it and she smoked it. Ultimately
she learned to do something called parachuting:
swallowing crystal meth in a rolling paper. Then
Sam soon discovered the high is always followed
by a brutal low.
Samantha Mathers before she began taking crystal meth. "I looked a
lot different. I was happy even though I was bigger." |
Binges on food and sleep eventually give way
to irritability, depression, and psychosis. Users
become paranoid. They hallucinate. Clinically,
they're psychotic.
Sam remembers well the night she overdosed on
meth after a nine-day binge. "I
did a five-point parachute on like the ninth day
and I ended up outside in the rain. I had frost-bitten
feet. I was talking to people I thought were there
but they weren't there. My grandma I guess saw
me outside and she called my mom and she came to
get me at 3:30 in the morning. "
Sam is determined to kick her habit.
"Everybody thinks I can't stop doing
drugs. But I want them to see that I can." |
Today, Sam doesn't go anywhere without
makeup to hide the scars she got by "tweaking" on
crystal meth. Users often hallucinate
that their skin is crawling with insects, so
they pick obsessively at their skin.
Days before her seventeenth birthday, Sam finished
a local crystal meth treatment program for young
people called "Meth Kickers." (read more about
Meth Kickers)
After three years on the drug, she is one month
without. Her battle continues. "When
I have a craving I think about what I want my future
to be like and I'm thinking a junkie will not get
that far in life."
Jay Siemens
In a garage behind his mother's Kamloops home,
Jay Siemens performs what has become a daily ritual:
smoking crystal meth.
Jay has been addicted for more than five years.
He's tried quitting, even cutting down, but
each time his body - and his friends - drag him
back to the drug he's now convinced he can't
live without.
Jay Siemens has smoked crystal meth daily for the last five years.
"The dark side is when it takes control of you. You don't choose when you
do it. It chooses you and pretty much isolates you." |
"Since I've been a daily
user, if I have a bag in my pocket, then I can
sleep at night. But if I don't have any then I'll
go out for the whole night until I get some."
He says he gets no pleasure from it any more.
The little buzz the drug still gives him is what
he now needs just to get through the day.
Jay's last attempt to get off crystal meth
lasted less than a week.
He and his addiction counsellor have come up
with a new plan to help him regulate his use. To
anyone else it would all seem pretty ordinary,
but to Jay even this will be a challenge.
His plan: Sleep every night. Eat meals at mealtime.
And smoke crystal meth just twice a day: in the
morning and mid-afternoon. If he smokes any later
than that, he won't sleep.
But after four days on his new plan, Jay went
on a binge. And now, even he finds it hard to hope.
"I have a good heart.
I don't rip people off. I don't intentionally hurt
people. I have so much more potential but I'm slowly
drifting further and further away from it."
Mary Ann Canaday found her daughter hiding
in a drug dealer's closet strung out on crystal
meth. |
Amanda Canaday
Mary Ann Canaday and her daughter
Amanda live in the town of Barriere, 45 minutes
north of Kamloops. It's a place that feels like
it should be impervious to big city problems. Yet,
in recent months, Barriere has discovered that
crystal meth is there too.
Last November, Mary Ann started noticing changes
in her 16-year-old, but she didn't suspect
drugs - at first. She had never even heard
of crystal meth. "I thought
well maybe it's just hormones, not getting along
with other kids, and just being a difficult teenager.
And then when I saw how much weight she lost, I
knew that I was in serious trouble."
Like other teen girls, Amanda Canaday began
taking crystal meth to control her weight. |
Amanda was introduced to the drug by a childhood
friend. Soon Amanda, one of Barriere's star
athletes, was hooked. She started sneaking out
of the house to get high. "I'd
look in the mirror and I could see that my face
was all sunk in. My personality changed. I just
wasn't the person I was before," remembers
Amanda.
The first time Amanda snuck out, Mary Ann found
her at a friend's place. The second night,
she couldn't find her at all. It wasn't
until the next afternoon that she finally tracked
her daughter to a house widely known in town as
a place kids go to do drugs. "She
was totally messed up. I couldn't believe it was
her looking like that."
As distraught as she was, Mary Ann was also determined
that Barriere had to wake up. Her child was not
the only one doing crystal meth. She knew that.
So she did the only thing she could think of.
She drove to the local newspaper office and pleaded
with the editor to run a story. "I
had to tell my story that this, my child from any
town Canada got access to a drug that can kill
you. And when they're addicted it just gets worse
and they just cannot be happy anymore."
Mary Ann hopes her story inspires other parents to take action.
"Hopefully they'll be kids whose parents will see they have a problem.
And get them the help that they need. |
When Mary Ann's story hit the front page,
Barriere was in shock. It's not that the
community of 5000 didn't know it had issues
with drugs. Marijuana grow-ops have been an industry
there for years. But now there was a more damaging
drug in town, and teenagers were using it.
Amanda is clean now, but she's still struggling
to stay away from the drug and attends a rehab
centre in Kamloops for treatment.
At a community meeting about crystal meth, Amanda
read a poem she'd written about
her addiction. (read Amanda's poem)
|
