Meth use danger dwarfs other street drugs, crime prevention event told

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This article was published 01/11/2018 (2765 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Criminal defence attorney Mike Cook has a close-up view of the destructive effects methamphetamine is having on the streets of Winnipeg.

“It’s the most dangerous drug, I think, anyone of us has ever seen on our streets,” Cook said during his opening remarks at the annual Crime Prevention Breakfast Thursday morning at the Fort Garry Hotel.

Cook serves as president of the Manitoba Criminal Justice Association, which organized the breakfast to kick off Manitoba crime prevention month.

This year, when choosing a topic for the event, Cook said it was clear meth use is a pressing concern that feeds crime trends and needs to be discussed.

“We read about crystal methamphetamine every day in the newspaper, on the radio, on television. It’s very high on the public profile, in terms of the things we have to correct,” he said.

The event was attended by a who’s who of Manitoba criminal justice, including Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth, Manitoba RCMP Commanding Officer Scott Kolody and Justice Minister Cliff Cullen.

Cook believes an important and often under-discussed tool in the battle against the meth crisis is effective addictions treatment. That’s why the MCJA invited Scott and Anne Oake to be this year’s keynote speakers.

The Oake family is spearheading a Winnipeg treatment centre called the Bruce Oake Recovery Centre. Scott, the Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster, and Anne shared their family’s tragic story once again.

While not a meth addict, their son Bruce battled addiction for years, including many stints in detox facilities. He died of a heroin overdose at the age of 25 in 2011.

“The sad truth is that he died in a bathroom stall at his local pub,” Anne said.

Cook said at one time opioids such as heroin and fentanyl, were the worst drugs on the street, but that’s not the case any longer.

As a criminal defence attorney, he said he routinely deals with clients addicted to meth, and the stories they tell him about their drug use are unlike anything he’s ever heard before.

“You might think, ‘Oh, it’s just another drug.’ Well, it’s far from that. People get visual hallucinations. I ask clients, ‘What do you mean by that?’ And they say, ‘Well, we see things that we know aren’t there,” Cook said.

“They all talk about these people called the ‘shadow people.’ They say, ‘They’re people who you see but they’re not really there.’ These people they see, they regard as demons. They have this demonic sense about them…. They’re supernatural beings they think are after them.”

It’s those sorts of paranoid visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as the ways the chemical compounds of meth ravage the brain, that make it such a dangerous drug that turns so many people violent, Cook said.

He believes it will take continued efforts from all levels of government, as well as co-operation and collaboration between front-line workers from the health-care, legal and law-enforcement sectors to make a dent in the crisis.

Cook said events such as Thursday’s breakfast, where experts, front-line workers and the public can all come together to discuss issues and potential solutions, are important in waging the fight.

“It’s going to take a lot of work, because crystal meth is everywhere. Clients have kind of abandoned the other drugs they used to use,” he said.

“It is, by far, the drug of choice. It’s the most dangerous and it causes the most havoc in our community.”

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpe