high times

THE CRYSTAL METH THREAT

Alberta Needs To Take Action To Fight Fast-Growing Drug Problem, Says Expert

When Bill Tatton and his wife Nadine settled on a property just outside Fort Macleod nearly two years ago, they were looking for a place to semi-retire.

The Willow Creek twists around their acreage, where pelicans raise their young by the shores, alfalfa grows in the fields and red-winged blackbirds glide through the sky.

The couple raises quarter horses and Labradors and enjoys the country lifestyle to which they've recently returned.

As a neurologist and professor for over 30 years, Tatton has worked at some of the best hospitals and medical schools in North America including Stanford University, the University of Calgary, the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.

Much of his research has focused on diseases that affect the brain, including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and ALS -- better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

In the early stages of his career in the late '60s and early '70s in Toronto, Tatton helped in a clinic, at times treating pregnant heroin addicts.

He never thought, going to a place like Fort Macleod, both his early and later experiences would be essential to what that community and others in southern Alberta are facing.

This past winter, Tatton began being contacted by a number of southern Alberta families -- 14 in all -- asking him how to deal with their children's methamphetamine addictions.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive drug also known as crystal meth, ice, glass, tweak and crank.  It's smoked, snorted or injected.  Lethbridge regional police laid 18 meth trafficking charges last year, a staggering increase over just two charges in 2003.

"There is no other substance on earth addictive like methamphetamine," Tatton says.  He explains people can become hooked after trying the drug just once.

He feels teenagers in junior high and high school are most susceptible because of peer pressure.  He explains it doesn't take long for a youth to move from sitting around with friends in a car and trying crystal meth for the first time to doing it every weekend and then finally going on a meth binge where they take it hourly for an extended period of time.

He says users at that point will be completely irrational, may hallucinate and ignore personal hygiene.  Often they'll start obsessively repeating movements.

What scares him the most, though, isn't just the speed and frequency with which people become addicted but what the drug does to the brains of crystal meth users after a short amount of time.

Tatton says a recent study found former crystal meth users who stopped using the drug still had more brain cell damage than early-stage Alzheimer's patients.  He explains that, unlike other drugs, the after-effects of crystal meth to the brain appear to be irreversible.

"It already looks like we will have a large group of people that will need to join the Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients but they won't be older than 30 or 40," Tatton says.

He feels counselling a few times a week isn't sufficient to get people to stop using crystal meth.  "There is a need for a new and separate approach."

At an annual meeting of western premiers and territorial leaders in early May, they agreed the country needs a comprehensive strategy to deal with the production, trafficking and after-effects of crystal meth.

Tatton says some provinces have taken action and he questions why Alberta hasn't done the same.  Recently he has been meeting with MLAs and MPs on the issue.

"What we need to do -- like Saskatchewan and British Columbia -- is to separate our methamphetamine program from other programs," Tatton says.  "It's different from gambling and alcohol addiction.  It's much more severe than cocaine and smoking."

Tatton says he'd like to see the province create a task force made up of doctors, social workers, police and the judiciary to look at the complex issues surrounding crystal meth addiction.

Tatton feels an entirely different kind of program may be necessary to treat crystal meth users.  He envisions a type of recreational facility set in the Waterton area where users would go for five to six weeks.  They'd climb mountains, run along trails and ride horses.  Tatton feels the facility could be run on private and government funding.

"It would be not just to get them ( crystal meth users ) through the period where they're trying to come off the drugs but to also change their view of themselves," Tatton says.  He feels the program could strengthen the former users' confidence in themselves and their resolve not to use the drug again.

He feels parents don't have enough control over whether their children go into drug treatment.

A Tory backbencher's bill to enable parents to force their drug-addicted children into treatment received widespread support in the legislature but in March the provincial justice minister suggested the bill was too complex to be dealt with in a private member's bill.  The provincial government would need to have the facilities and also deal with charter of rights questions before making such a move.

"If the Alberta government doesn't want the long-term problems associated with methamphetamine, we have to commit ourselves as a society," Tatton says.