Getting the message out about drugs in Canada

http://www.fortsaskatchewanrecord.com/story.php?id=209774

By Candace Brown
Staff Writer
Friday January 27, 2006

Fort Saskatchewan Record — On Wednesday night, Const. Helen Meinzinger spoke to parents and their children at Rudolph Hennig about drugs.
She spent half of the two-hour session talking about crystal meth.
Those who attended watched a movie dealing with meth, it brought tears to some, as well as shock and possibly anger.
The movie showed individuals talking about drugs; why they did them and the effects they have.
It also showed before and after photos of people who became meth junkies.
When a person first takes meth, their brain works faster, but then slows.
Hitler had used meth. The meth today compared to then is much more pure and potent.
Crystal meth is cheap and easy to get and the high lasts longer.
People snort, shoot, smoke, and eat crystal meth.
Speed freaks tend to have weird living conditions, displaying no standards for cleanliness.
They will develop sores, sometimes from trying to dig out the meth in their body to be re-smoked.
Meth creates an over production of brain chemicals and depletes dopamine. The brain then cannot regenerate the chemicals, causing the individual to crash.
A crash can las from one to three days and the user will do anything to get out of it. They experience paranoia and suicidal thoughts.
Meth junkies become violent and defensive because they have an abnormal perception of threat.
They also have a paranoid schizophrenic behavior.
Child abuse cases, where the parents are meth addicts are the most gruesome.
The case shown on the movie was about a girl, who lost her life to the torture that her meth addicted parents put her through.
They hung her from the closet, made her sleep in the tub, and burned her.
There are no old meth addicts. Meth affects the central nervous system and is more powerful than cocaine.
Meth is easy to produce and is usually white, but can also be tan or purple. The colour depends on its purity.
Yaba Yaba is the name for the pill form of meth. Meth is highly addictive.
In Alberta, it is usually D-meth that is used, which is more potent and has fewer adverse side effects.
People who start by smoking meth, will end up using a needle to shoot it up.
Many drugs offer a euphoric feeling to the user.
“You’d be lying if you told somebody that drugs didn’t make you feel good at first,” Const. Meinzinger says.
There are three types of meth users. They are low intensity users, binge users and high intensity users.
Low intensity users are casual users, who use it like caffeine or nicotine and function normal.
Bingers go through seven stages when they use meth; rush, high, binge, tweaking, crash, normal, and withdrawal.
Ninety-three per cent of people that do get treatment for meth use, do re-use.
Crystal meth users experience many short term and long term effects.
Meth is made with precursors, solvents and reagents.
In Fort Saskatchewan, one unactive lab was taken down. The Fort experienced a boom in meth use in 1998. Since then there has been a decrease in meth use and increase in cocaine use.
During the last few weeks, the Fort Saskatchewan RCMP have made a few seizures of cocaine.
Cocaine is pyschologically addictive.
Meinzinger also talked about crack, LSD, magic mushrooms, ectasy, marijauna, ketamine, and salvia divinorum.
She explained the effects of each drug and their different forms.
The drug that perhaps has seen the most changes is marijauna. The THC levels have increased significantly over the years.
Because of the higher THC level in todays pot, it is an addictive drug, Meinzinger claimed.
The testosterone levels in young males that smoke marijauna decreases, while it increases in young females.
There were also a large variety of hand-outs about drugs and alcohol.
As well, Const. Meinzinger had the drug kit on display, which included a pipe that looked like a police car.