Morley tackles methamphetamine problem

Last week, on a sunny Friday afternoon, dozens of community members lined up for a sausage lunch while traditional dancers, drummers and a DJ performed outside of the Stoney Health Centre in Morley. The event, branded as Summer Jams, was held by the health centre with the goal of addressing substance abuse and connecting people with resources. But the event also underlined a more specific issue faced by the community – methamphetamine use. Addiction problems have long plagued Morley but over the last few years meth, known as “tech” on the reserve, has taken the largest toll, according to some community members. “It’s nothing new,” said Krista Hunter, culture liaison for the Stoney Health Centre and who helped emcee the event. “Alcohol was one of the main problems that first started, then we had the opiates, then we had marijuana come in, (now) we have – I always call this ‘devastation disease’ – meth.” Hunter said the Health Centre has been ramping up the discussion on drugs and hopes, with the engagement of youth and elders, the usage of meth will slow down. Cochrane RCMP, who serve the Morley area, said there are no statistics of the drug within the reserve being readily available, and in the last six months there have not been any deaths related to drugs.

‘We need to help each other’

Hunter continued to address the crowd composed of all age groups. “The tech usage is not a just individual thing, it affects all of us in the community. It affects our children, it affects our grandmothers our grandfathers, our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers ... the leadership, everyone that we see here; even the RCMP, it affects them because they have to see a lot when they come into our community,” she said. Georgina Twoyoungmen, who works at the Stoney Health Centre, was helping run a booth at the event specifically geared toward education on meth. “We are trying to let them know about the legalization of cannabis and what meth is doing to our community,” Twoyoungmen said. “We’re mainly focusing on the long-term effects because it causes brain damage, blood cell damage, heart damage, all the organs inside our bodies are getting damaged by the chemicals they cook with.” Twoyoungmen flipped through a binder that contained images of household cleaners and other chemicals, which she brought to share with anyone approaching the booth. “If we give them a visualization, people might think, this is what our family members, our brothers our sisters our children are damaging themselves with. We’re reaching out, we want to help our people,” she said. “We want people to understand and know that this is a big issue on our reserve.” Organizers of the event said more than 100 people attended the event, which served as a replacement to the “Meth Walk” held in previous years. “With this substance awareness we have today, I hope people can take advantage of it,” Hunter said. “We need to get rid of the stigma. We need to stop judging each other because we’re all human beings. We all breathe the same air, we all live in the community. If we’re going to heal as a community, we need to help each other.” “We’ll get out of this illness. We need to heal the traumas of residential schools, we need to heal from the trauma of colonization and we also need to heal from our own self-destruction that we created in our own community.” A drop-in support group is offered at the Stoney Health Centre for all substance addictions. For more information, call (403) 881-2739 or email [email protected].