Pubdate: Wed, 04 Feb 2015
Source: Okotoks Western Wheel (CN AB)
Copyright: 2015, Great West Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.westernwheel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1638
Author: Bruce Campbell

PARENTS GET STREETS SENSE ON DRUGS

Education: Detective Doug Hudacin guest speaker at St. John Paul II Collegiate

Marijuana, booze and cigarettes aren't the gateway to drug use for 
teens according to a Calgary Police Service drug expert.

The gateway is whom little Jack or Jill hangs with.

"It's easy to say marijuana is the gateway drug, but it's not," said 
Detective Doug Hudacin at St. John Paul Collegiate on Jan. 19. "The 
gateway is the peer group, not the drugs. So if the kids are running 
with a group that does dope. Guess what? The kid is going to do dope.

"It's peer pressure that is the gateway, not the drug itself."

Hudacin spoke to approximately 70 people at the school about common 
street drugs in Calgary and surrounding communities. He touched on 
marijuana, cocaine, opiates, ecstasy, meth, GHB - the date rape drug 
- - and Ketamine.

Things have changed since the parents in the crowd were in school.

Today's pot is not the same as when folks were smoking a joint while 
listening to Dylan wail "Everybody must get stoned."

Hudacin said some former users who have tried the more potent weed of 
today, report getting much higher to the point of hallucinating at times.

He told of handling some high-grade marijuana during a drug bust at a 
grow-up a few years ago.

"We weren't wearing any gloves and in four or five minutes, we were 
gooned - we were absolutely blasted," Hudacin said.

Cocaine has maintained its popularity in southern Alberta due to its 
relatively low cost.

One of the concerns with cocaine - and all drugs - is it's highly 
unlikely that a Walter-White-like chemist is cooking the batch.

"When you purchase this stuff there is no quality control," he said. 
"You have no idea what drugs have been mixed in there - rat poison, 
maybe something that mimics the affects of cocaine.

"So when you go to the hospital for an overdose they (hospital staff) 
have to be very careful because they have no idea in reality of what 
some person is taking."

Hudacin said meth - the drug made famous by Breaking Bad - has not 
hit the epidemic stages in Alberta like it has in the U.S., due in 
large part to the media effectively letting the public know of the 
dangers of the highly addictive drug.

"Methamphetamine has not become the problem here as it has in other 
places," he said. "I think the biggest reason is the media. The 
media, whether intentionally or not, played a huge role in scaring 
the crap out of people.

"It is incredibly addictive because you develop a tolerance to it 
very, very quickly."

Not all the drugs come from the streets like meth and coke. Some of 
the most dangerous are right at home.

Hudacin said he is aware of "pharm parties" in which pills are taken 
from medicine cabinets and mixed in bowls. The pills are then taken at random.

"That (the medicine cabinet) is where kids are going to get the drugs 
from - mom and dad aren't going to notice four or five tabs of this 
thing or that thing or missing," he said.

Hudacin said there are more overdose deaths from prescription drugs 
than there are from street drugs.

He said the key to a youth not getting involved with drugs is talking 
to the ones who care about him or her most.

"The biggest thing with kids is keeping the doors of communication 
open - making it so they aren't not afraid to talk to you," he said. 
'"Mom, dad, I have been doing some coke' - and they are going to 
expect you to become unglued, but you can't... If you do that, you're 
going to scare them away."

He said it is important for parents to know the dope on dope before speaking.

"Kids today are way more clued in than we ever were," Hudacin said.

"As soon as you come up with a fact they know to not be true, 
communication is broken because of the simple fact you don't know 
what you are talking about."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom