The Crystal Meth Prevention Society of BC today presented its ‘Be Crystal Clear’ Meth Info Show before a wide cross section of the community including MLA’s, Councillors, Westshore RCMP, SNAP Photo Magazine and CHEK TV News.

In a survey of 2700 students after seeing this show, 96 % thought that other people should see it too. 22 % said they know someone using crystal meth.

“Understanding how Meth works protects students and communities against street drugs in general and crystal meth in particular” said Society Executive Director Mark McLaughlin. “We are asking for Community support to help continue these presentations.”

There wasn’t one particular moment when Kevin Henry realized methamphetamines had dragged his life to rock bottom.

It wasn’t in the grip of hallucination, when he spoke to a telephone pole for two hours. It wasn’t trying to steal a police car or not eating or sleeping for weeks on end. It wasn’t even overdosing and surviving two heart attacks as a teenager.

“It was just years of people telling me I needed to stop this life,” said the 25-year-old Sooke resident. “I was 15 or 16 when I went into it. I was addicted pretty quick.”

Henry, now five years clean, will present his grim but redemptive story as a Victoria-area meth addict, as part of a Crystal Meth Society of B.C. talk at Isabelle Reader Theater on Thursday.

Henry spent about four years on the streets, living day to day as a petty criminal and meth smoker. Binges would last two weeks or more with little food or water. Doctors couldn’t understand why he was still among the living.

A lawyer for Randy Potts, a member of the Hells Angels who pleaded guilty to drug-trafficking offences, says Potts should be sentenced to either a period of probation or a short jail term.

In December, Potts, a full-patch member of the East End chapter of the notorious motorcycle club, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to produce and traffic in methamphetamines and to trafficking in cocaine.

The prosecution told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Leask that Potts, now out on bail, should receive a jail term of 12 years, minus a year for presentence custody.

But on Wednesday, Bonnie Craig, a lawyer for Potts, argued that the judge should consider his sentencing last year for gun offences when sentencing for the drug crimes.

What: Be Crystal Clear, presentation about crystal meth
Where: Spencer Middle School, 1026 Goldstream Ave.
When: 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28
Tickets: Free, information at www.crystalmethbc.ca

As Mark McLaughlin places bottles of Drano, antifreeze, brake fluid, acetone, camping fuel, rat poison and paint remover on a table, his audience is filled with growing horror.

These toxic chemicals can burn on contact, corrode water pipes, decompose paint. Who in their right minds would pour a deadly cocktail of them into their bodies?

Children do, says McLaughlin, to get high.

These are ingredients of crystal methamphetamine -- a cheap, deadly, readily available illegal drug in Canada -- and it's no surprise people and families are blown up by the mixture.

It's also no wonder the drug is infamous for horrifically aging people, for causing them to tear off their clothes like madmen.

"They literally burn up," he says. "It's like burning the candle at both ends with a blow torch."

McLaughlin doesn't discuss details, but says a family member was once consumed by the addiction and almost died. The experience drove him to found the Crystal Meth Society -- a group of parents, professionals and businesspeople such as Don Monsour, chairman of B.C. Culinary Tourism, and Bob Parrotta, food and beverage director at Butchart Gardens -- to educate people about drugs, and halt their use.

The society will give a free presentation called Be Crystal Clear at 7 p.m. Thursday in Spencer Middle School, 1026 Goldstream Ave.

Diagnostic Laboratory Services released its year-end numbers for 2009 and found that crystal meth use rose 33 percent from 2008.

According to the laboratory, which conducts tests for companies and those seeking employment, the biggest rise came in the fourth quarter. The lab conducts 7,000 to 10,000 drug tests each quarter, and in late 2009, meth use was up 57 percent from the year’s average rate.

“We don’t know if it’s attributed to the economy, perhaps, or if it is a one-quarter anomaly,” Carl Linden of Diagnostic Laboratory Services said.

Drug prevention groups like the Hawaii Meth Project said it’s common to see increases in substance abuse in a bad economy.

"Shrinking the distance" between John Weston's far-flung B.C. riding and Ottawa has been one of the major themes of the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country Member of Parliament's first full year in office.

First elected in October 2008, the Conservative MP said in a wide-ranging year-end interview last week that while he's had the honour of going on two major international trips in 2009 - including Prime Minister Stephen Harper's recent sojourn to China, Hong Kong and South Korea - he has enjoyed the challenge of what he termed standing "the pyramid" on its head and allowing communities to take a leading role in setting his agenda.

Resident in the area of 102B Avenue and MacKinnon Road, near the Fort Langley Golf Course, awoke to plastic and metal pails lying in the nearby creek and red liquid spilling out of some of the lids, said one neighbour.

There was also bags of chemical powder. The Langley RCMP called Hazco, a hazardous clean-up company, to come remove the barrels, many of them full with an unknown liquid.

The pails were likely full of the byproducts of a meth-making lab but police wouldn't confirm what it was. Drug lab waste has been dumped in ditches and fields all over Langley over the past decade.

Any meth-making lab produces a lot of toxic waste that is discarded.

Among the items used to make crystal meth and ecstasy are methylamine hydrochloride, iodine and red phosphorus.

Mounties have begun raiding labs producing synthetic drugs even before the pills get produced. RCMP drug cops say the new tactic is already making a dent in B.C.'s party-drugs trade.

At Vancouver's E-Division Tuesday, police displayed 14,000 ecstasy pills, $250,000 in cash and seven guns they seized after busting a drug operation in Richmond following an 18-month investigation.

Nine people, including two women, face numerous drug charges. Two are linked to Asian organized crime, police said.

"This is a bust that is very significant," said Supt. Brian Cantera, who heads the RCMP's drug-enforcement branch.

Cantera said the probe involved surveillance and undercover police work, and was high risk and high cost.

Standing by his side, B.C. Solicitor-General Kash Heed said he's asked the federal government to restrict the availability of so-called "precursor chemicals" such as pseudoephedrine.

Right now, it's not a crime to possess large quantities of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in ecstasy production. There are also no restrictions on owning pill-pressing machines. Legal loopholes are a big reason why B.C. leads the country in the illicit trade, Heed said.

"These illegal drug networks threaten the security of our communities and must be absolutely destroyed," said Heed, a former top drug cop in the Vancouver Police Department.

Heed has also demanded better background checks on all those who come into possession of the chemicals, along with more federal inspections.

"What we can do within our powers, we are doing," said Heed. "What we cannot do is close the loopholes."

Jang was referring to a study published last month in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that revealed a spike in HIV rates among the city's crack smokers. The researchers recommended opening a supervised inhalation room and conducting a scientific trial to see if HIV rates would decrease. Dr. Perry Kendall, the province's chief medical health officer, supports the recommendation.

Last week's tragic death of a young Whistler man who perished after ingesting a quantity of the drug known as Ecstasy this week prompted a local RCMP official to issue a stern warning to those who may be thinking of taking illicit drugs.

"These drugs are made by criminals using methamphetimine and toxic chemicals. Anytime you're taking these drugs, you're taking your life in your hands," Whistler RCMP Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair said on Tuesday ( Nov. 17 ). "People ask me, 'Are there bad drugs out there?' The answer is that they're all bad."

The apparent drug overdose occurred last Thursday ( Nov. 12 ). Police responded to a call at a Whistler home at approximately 11 a.m., RCMP Sgt. Steve Wright said in a statement.

A 20-year-old male had been found unconscious by friends. When police arrived, Whistler Fire Rescue Service and Emergency Health Services personnel were performing CPR, but failed to revive the victim, who was pronounced dead a short time later at the Whistler Health Care Centre, Wright said.