ATHABASCA – It's cheap. It’s dirty. It’s highly addictive. It’s just plain dangerous. It proves every day how one seemingly harmless decision in a moment of weakness can shape the lives of users, and those around them, for years to come. There are few things more insidious than methamphetamine.
It’s a message that Athabasca Rotarian Brian Bittorf has been bringing to Grade 5-6 students around the Athabasca region for a decade now, but unfortunately, it’s still necessary. Bittorf just wrapped another season of delivering the Don’t Meth With Us! anti-drug program, something the former teacher/administrator enjoys immensely as it continues to allow him to shape the minds of young people and to urge them to make good decisions.
In an interview April 25, Bittorf recalled attending a Rotary conference in Montreal in 2010, where he was introduced to the program.
“My whole career was in education, that's all I ever did, and I just looked at it and it just fit so well into the Grade 5 kind of thinking. I just looked at it and thought with the way drugs are going nuts for us, we’ve got to do that,” he said. “I brought home the idea and our club said, ‘Brian, if you want to champion it, if you want to head it up, do it,’ so I did.”
The Athabasca Rotary Club supported the program financially for the first year, and following the success of the first year, Bittorf reached out to the founder of the program, Paul McQueary, a fellow Rotarian in New Mexico who started the program in 2006. He suggested Bittorf reach out to the community for potential sponsors.
“I had $5,000 in five minutes,” he said.
Now, eight other local sponsors help make sure the program continues year after year — Aspen View Public Schools, Lincoln County Oilfield Services, Koch Ford, Servus Credit Union, Athabasca Legion, Home Hardware, Canadian Tire and Buy-Low Foods.
Meth is in almost every community, said Bittorf, and luckily, so is Rotary.
Bittorf presents the students with a very real and sometimes graphic representation of meth addiction, showing not only the progression of the physical consequences of meth use and abuse — namely loss of teeth, extreme weight loss, and festering sores — but also the paranoia, rage and other irrational behaviour that come as a result. He also gets into a little bit of the science behind addiction, and how methamphetamine stands alone in many ways.
Because of the toxic ingredients used to create the drug — muriatic acid, red phosphorous, iodine, acetone and toluene, to name a few — it is considered a neurotoxin as well as it damages neural tissue within the brain that can be long-lasting, even after discontinuation of use, and some brain functioning may never return.
The presentation isn’t solely focused on meth though, it also touches on ecstasy, cocaine, heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and other prescription drugs.
“We talk about illegal drugs, and we also point out in the presentation, there are legal drugs that you get addicted to, so we have the kids think about some of the legal drugs that you can get addicted to and some of them are pretty quick with it. There’s alcohol of course, and smoking, but I often point out what mom and dad have every morning in a cup — coffee.,” said Bittorf.
Kids are always curious and are very receptive to the message, Bittorf said, which is part of its ongoing success, and why he continues with it.
