IN THE NEWS

 

EVERETT, Wash. - J essica Van Horn was a spirited 12-year-old in Grade 7 when she first noticed her peers turning on to methamphetamine. The highly addictive drug was, in fact, tearing through her hometown of Everett and the surrounding Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, in Washington state.

Jessica's first idea was straightforward enough -- she would organize a summit for young people, by young people, to educate them about the dangers of the drug.

Today, 17-year-old Jessica is in her third year as president of the Snohomish County Youth Meth Action Team and the summit has become an annual event. Attendance has grown from 800 to 1,300 this year.

"It's a huge problem," she says. "It's overwhelming. A lot of my friends have gone down the wrong path. I was trying to help them."

Commitments such as Van Horn's are the key to stemming the meth tide, Snohomish authorities say.

"You've got to reach out to the community," says County Sheriff Rick Bart. "If you don't have communities organized, the police will be hitting their heads against the wall. The reason I'm optimistic is because of these kids."

In 2001, Washington state police shut down 1,800 illegal meth-making labs. Last year, the number fell to about 1,400.

In Snohomish, the 51 lab calls in 2004 marked a four-year-low -- though that figure is still high compared to the 19 labs that Mounties in B.C. took down last year.

The meth crisis is Bart's major headache. Even his nephew became addicted and had to be sent to California for treatment.

Bart says the cost of meth-related investigations is at least half his $40 million U.S. budget.

B.C., he says with a grimace, will soon learn just how pervasive the drug can be.

"We can probably tie 60 to 80 per cent of our crime back to meth," he says. "You [in B.C.] can expect crime to go up. You can expect [meth] to affect almost everybody in your community."

Bart says one of the best ways to slow the rate of new addictions is to target young people before they pick up the habit.

Van Horn's organization talks to kids as young as 11. Adults are involved too, assisting the kids to carry out their initiatives.

Van Horn measures success not just by attendance, but by the number of young people who tell her the team and the summits have made a difference in their lives.

"Even if we reach a couple, that's enough," she says.

One of the success stories is Kris Swanson. The 17-year-old Everett woman with a shy smile was a meth abuser for five years until she got clean.

Sitting with Bart in the lunchroom at the sheriff's office, she talks about how she ate and smoked the drug, how she left home at 15, dropped out of school, stole cars and robbed stores and houses to support her addiction.

With the help of Van Horn's team, she eventually kicked her addiction. Now she's back in high school, hoping to graduate this year.

Susan York is executive director and co-founder of Lead On America, a group founded in 2001 in an effort to get meth labs shut down.

York and her colleagues hold neighbourhood meetings teaching people how to spot a meth lab and how to get it shut.

York says it took LOA three years to eliminate its first lab. But the most recent lab was identified, raided and boarded up in just 83 days. She encourages Canadian community groups to follow the Lead On example.