Latest Video Delves Into Breaking The Grip Of Meth
“It’s all about fitting in,” Tracey Jasper says about her daughter’s Meagan’s descent into hell of what is crystal methamphetamine addiction.
It was a major theme in the second major video released by the Moose Jaw Crystal Meth Strategy Committee (MJCMSC) in the “Stop Mething Around” series.
But unlike the first video - “Stop Mething Around - Stories From The Front Line Of the Crystal Meth Crisis” which was a gritty look at Meth use on the streets of Moose Jaw the recently released “Stop Mething Around - A Family Affair” is a candid and informal conversation about the impact on the family.
Hosted by Craig Hemingway the video is actually a discussion which is subdivided into sections discussing local Meth use generally progressing into the impact Meth had on one teenage addict’s family and culminating with hope that the hell can be frozen over and life can be one of hope.
The 53 minute video talks candidly talks about the hell one family and mother went through when a child slipped into meth addiction.
The video, shot in segments, adds some details about the proliferation of meth in Moose Jaw but really is about the grating impact and slashing which occurs to a family’s social structure when their teenage daughter falls into using Meth.
The video delivers the required shock value from the statistics and what so far has been seen in the meth crisis which has hit many in Moose Jaw like a tidal wave.
There are admissions about exactly how long Meth has been in Moose Jaw and how the police and professionals first started to notice it’s creep into the community.
It also reveals details and facts not released or not widely known about the proliferation of Meth in Moose Jaw.
“It is very available,” says MJCMSC coordinator Mary Lee Booth who had earlier stated it is being manufactured in homes and apartments.
The video delves into the question nobody seems to be what makes people start taking Meth in the first place.
“What we don’t know is why people take it in the first place,” Booth said.
The proliferation of Meth is not just in a single demographic Constable Shawn Mohle says about what the Moose Jaw Police Service (MJPS) has discovered.
“We see it from our homeless people all the way up to our professionals. There are professionals using Crystal Meth,” Mohle stated.
Use has proliferated to the point he said that daily the MJPS are encountering at least one person who is on meth.
“It has definitely increased to the point where we are seeing people daily under the influence of crystal meth,” he said, adding the addiction has had addicts commit crimes now in the daylit hours because of it.
The use is tracked back by both Booth as a former mental health care worker and Mohle as a police officer before 2016.
The statistics of Meth in Moose Jaw is staggering.
“Since 2016 simple possession (of meth) have increased by 2,000 percent…possession for the purpose of trafficking has risen by 2,800 per cent since 2016,” Booth said.
Meth use in the community has been so prolific it is showing up as a major statistic in those seeking to de-tox or treatment with “up to 50 percent” currently seeking help admit to Crystal Meth use.
A major reason given for the proliferation of Meth in Moose Jaw is its ease to manufacture, how relatively speaking cheap it is and the effect it has on a person who takes it. Meth can wrap its icy hand around a first time user’s throat so quickly that letting go is next to impossible the video tells viewers.
But the major focus of the video is the story or rather the hell Tracey Jasper (who lived in Yorkton at the time) Meth had not just upon her daughter Meagan but Tracey as well.
It is a hand that led to her daughter reacting often violently to the point Tracey gave up on her daughter Meagan completely.
The video tries to answer the questions as to why Meagan (who was featured in the original lengthy Stop Mething Around) started to take Meth in the first place.
Meagan and her family are protrayed as ordinary middle people who did not drink or use drugs who due to their middle class standing knew nothing about soft drugs let alone Meth.
It is the message that Meth addiction does not discriminate and often youth in what is seen as more mainstream families free from addiction and crime are now caught in a web seemingly impossible to escape.
The end result saw Tracey giving up and ostracizing her daughter Meagan because of the violence the then teenager inflicted on her mother.
The Jasper family’s struggles in a system to find help seemingly speak to the viewers about the process so many families go through and how they lose hope against a super charged villain made with such components as battery acid and anhydrous ammonia.
Tracey tells about the shame the family felt as the police searched heir homes on more than one occasion.
A shame that became real as her daughter became an adult and she was no longer spared the glare of the media and people knowing about her involvement with Meth after police searches and charges.
The story goes on about how Meagan finally moved out of home and then managed to beg Tracey to meet her in order to borrow $40. For Tracey seeing how much her daughter had changed was a shock to her very core.
But that was not the end of it as suddenly Meagan simply disappeared and Tracey fell into a bottomless descent of fear what the final result would be in her daughter’s life. The despair got so bad that when the police finally informed her Meagan was arrested and in jail it was what a mother needed to know her daughter would be alright.
“She is safe. Nobody is going to hurt her. Whatever happens - happens,” Tracey admits about the arrest to the three others in the video.
Climbing back to a better life free of drugs has been hard and the final result might amaze you.
The video concludes with how families can find help and the hope their loved ones have the opportunity to recover and transform to something better than the Meth hell they just came from.
For the answers and to see how there is hope the video is an hour parents and families should take a look at.
Stop Mething Around : A Family Affair may be viewed on YouTube by clicking the link.