Pubdate: Sat, 25 Nov 2006
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Craig Pearson, Windsor Star

CRACK USE SKYROCKETS

Police Call Influx of Dealers 'Dangerous'

John White knows the horrors crack cocaine can wield, such as the 
time -- in a fit of drug-induced rage -- he broke both arms when he 
purposely blasted through a second-storey windowpane.

"I jumped out the window to get in a fight," the 44-year-old Hamilton 
man recalled Friday at a conference in Windsor called Cracked! 
Cocaine In Our Community. "I was very high. Probably had about an 
eight-ball (3.5 grams of crack, worth about $250) in me at the time. 
I felt like nobody could hurt me. What do you mean you're calling me 
names? So I stepped back and ran right through the living room and 
smashed through the plate glass window. The next thing I hit was the street."

The hospitalization didn't stop his crack habit, however. Neither did 
the time he took a crowbar to the face in a bar fight and temporarily 
lost all vital signs.

But two years ago the man who says he has been an addict since age 
13, starting with acid and pills before injecting and smoking crack, 
finally decided to stop killing himself.

"Enough was enough," said White, in Windsor to urge the community to 
create a local Cocaine Anonymous chapter like the one he considers 
his lifeline in Hamilton.

"I got tired of living like an animal. I would do anything for drugs: 
break-and-enters, robbery, fraud, begging and stealing from family. 
I've gotten hepatitis C from the use of drugs and I know that it's 
eventually going to take my life."

A variety of speakers at the Cracked! conference at the Hospice of 
Windsor, which attracted an overflow crowd of 115 from more than a 
dozen agencies, reinforced a disturbing trend: Windsor has a growing 
crack problem.

"We've been experiencing an incredible failure in terms of people 
going back to jail because of the disease called crack cocaine," said 
Skip Graham, executive director of St. Leonard's halfway house, which 
sponsored the daylong Cracked! seminar. "Ninety per cent of the 
suspensions in our program are directly related to testing positive 
for crack cocaine."

Crack is a highly addictive stimulant derived from powdered cocaine. 
Users "freebase" cocaine by dissolving and then boiling it in baking 
soda till it forms lumps or rocks, then smoke it in a pipe.

According to the Canadian Addiction Survey, said federal prosecutor 
Richard Pollack, rates of lifetime use of powdered and crack cocaine 
in Canada almost tripled between 1994 and 2004. The amount of cocaine 
seized by law enforcement officials increased more than 40 per cent 
between 2003 and 2004.

Although Windsor statistics weren't provided at Cracked!, anecdotal 
evidence suggests it's particularly bad locally -- including a rise 
in guns and related crime.

"There's definitely been an increase in crack cocaine and an increase 
in more dealers coming to the city," said Sgt. Mike Ducharme, of the 
Windsor police drug enforcement branch, who suspects the influx stems 
from the Toronto area.

"There are also more aggressive dealers, with firearms and so forth. 
It's dangerous."

IF YOU NEED HELP

Numbers to call:

Withdrawal Management Services: (519)257-5225

Narcotics Anonymous: (519)256-9975, (519)999-1234

Drug and Alcohol Registry of Treatment: 1-800-565-8603
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MAP posted-by: Elaine