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Winnipeg Police Service Chief Danny Smyth says that the methamphetamine crisis in the city is keeping him up at night.
In a media conference called on Thursday, February 8, 2018, police and emergency services in the city spoke about the dangers and the increase of methamphetamine use in the city.
According to Max Waddell the inspector in charge of the Organized Crime Unit there has been a spike in the amount of meth police are finding.
” For the year 2016, we had 490 seizures of meth that worked out to approximately 11,590 grams. In 2017 we had over 701 seizures at over 12,000 grams, ” said Waddell. “What is most concerning to me is in the month of January for 2018, we’ve seized almost 5800 grams which would equate to almost half the years total for all of 17.”
Waddell said that there are no boundaries and that police are finding the drug everywhere.
Four factors why meth gaining popularity in Winnipeg
1 – Cost of meth has dropped significantly over the past two years from $55,000 to $17, 000 per kilo.
2 – Meth users experience a high for up to 14 hours
3 – Meth is easy to source in Winnipeg much of it coming into the city from British Columbia.
4 – Meth is easy to make and uses off the shelf ingredients.
The medical director for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, Dr. Rob Grierson, who is also an emergency room physician said that it is extremely difficult to treat patients who are high on meth because they are so unpredictable.
Grierson says that patients present differently from one moment to the next and are often times paranoid and violent. In some cases patients appear to have “super-human powers” in others they run the risk of sudden cardiac death.
“From a healthcare standpoint, no two individuals or no two uses are exactly alike,” said Grierson
Police chief Smyth said that he is hoping we can tackle this issue together as a community and that they are working on an illicit drug strategy to combat methamphetamine.
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