The highly addictive and potentially deadly drug called crystal meth is here and it is ruining lives.
That message was hammered home over and over at a town forum on Monday (April 11) - most effectively when a letter from an inmate was read.
Anita Prine stood up at the end of the meeting, hands shaking and voice faltering, to announce she was 51 days clean and wanted to share a letter written by her husband, Neil Mattson.
Prine's bold decision to share her struggle with meth came after more than two hours of presentations from various experts.
Once the presentations were finished there was a question and answer session for a large panel of experts on hand for the meeting.
Prine was the last audience member to indicate she wanted to speak.
"It all started at a very young age, 13, 14 years old," Prine said reading from the letter written by her husband from a jail cell in Port Coquitlam. "Alcohol was the first of my addictions and the first of many monkeys to climb upon my back. Over the next 20 years it sent me to jail on several occasions for impaired driving and various other minor offences. As I got old I tried cocaine. At first I would just snort it but it wasn't long before my second monkey climbed aboard my back: injecting cocaine. I was in love."
Prine continued to read the four-page letter, pausing a few times to stifle or wipe away tears. Mattson explained in the letter he went from job to job, in and out of jail and tried several times to stop using drugs. The drugs called him back every time.
He moved away from 樱桃视频and thought he had his addiction beat but he said he soon returned to old ways.
"Then came the biggest monkey of them all," Mattson wrote.
That monkey was meth.
"This was the wonder drug, or so I thought," he wrote. "I could stay awake for days and get absolutely nothing done. I began to sell it to support my habit."
Mattson turned his wife onto the drug. He reported his credibility was lost, he ruined his wife's credit rating, he lost any chance of having a good job and in February the couple lost their home.
He recently entered a guilty plea after being charged after police discovered he had explosives that were stolen from the Sea to Sky University.
According to Mattson he would never have done it if the meth monkey had never climbed upon his back pushing for just one puff.
He feels being arrested was more like a rescue.
Mattson finished the letter by urging those at the forum to listen and prevent meth from ruining any lives.
The matter of the explosives charges laid against Mattson was the topic of a court hearing in North Vancouver on Tuesday (April 12). The matter was set over to next Tuesday to set a date for sentencing.
Mattson's situation matched scenarios presented earlier in the evening by Roger Lake, an expert from Washington State who now is a part-time Furry Creek resident.
Lake shared examples of busts he was involved in where meth labs were set up in houses occupied by babies. The power of the drug caused the so-called meth-cooks to lose their instinct to adequately look after their young children.
Meth is the most powerful central nervous system stimulant known and the drug is considered an epidemic in Washington State, Lake said.
"Parents are the number one source of information for young people," Lake stressed over and over. He encouraged the parents in the audience of 250 to connect with their children and remind them regularly of the dangers of drug use.
Dr. Jim Jamieson said local medical professionals see the affects of meth use in Squamish. He said evidence of meth abuse rose dramatically in the last year or two. Doctors are seeing overdose cases in the emergency room and chronic abusers seeking help in the various offices around town.
He concluded his talk by saying the best way to deal with meth is not to start using it.
Neil, a 28-year-old 樱桃视频resident introduced to readers of The Chief on March 28, also addressed the crowd with his parents in the audience hearing him speak for the first time.
Sgt. Colin Worth was asked what residents can do if they know someone is selling meth and he told the audience to share the knowledge with the RCMP. He said that can be done by calling the local detachment or calling Crimestoppers.
"Your call will tip us off and we will do a number of hours of investigation," Worth said.
Dave Hildreth, the host of the evening, said the objective of the evening was to increase awareness of the meth issue.
The objective was achieved through the forum and the newspaper, radio and television coverage leading up to the event.
