Since it's cheap, easy to produce and more addictive than cocaine, many groups in Whitehorse are concerned that crystal meth may be the next drug on the horizon.

Crystal meth is white, brown or cream-coloured and comes in both powder and crystal from. It can be smoked, snorted, injected or eaten.

While it has not yet reached the territory in significant quantities, laboratories producing the drug are spreading across the country.

Demand for synthetic drugs like crystal meth and ecstasy is growing, according to Ontario RCMP.

Over the past five years, 60 per cent of the drug labs shut down nationwide were producing meth, police say.

As part of National Addictions Awareness Week, community groups and residents in Whitehorse will meet tonight to discuss how to prevent meth from travelling north up the Alaska Highway and to plan what should be done should it arrive.

'This is something that has been a problem in so many other communities across the country, and as yet has not reached Whitehorse in full-swing,' said Brooke Alsbury, a member of the National Addictions Awareness Week Committee in Whitehorse.

'In general, this is a chance for us to be proactive in our approaches.'

While there have been reports that a handful of people in the territory have tried the drug, it does not seem widespread, Brooke said.

There has only been one small crystal meth seizure in the territory, according to Const. Rick Aird of the RCMP Drug Awareness Service.

While the drug is not entirely new it was known as 'speed' or 'crank' in the 1960s there has been a resurgence of use since the 1990s because it's easy and cheap to manufacture, Aird said.

Sgt. Ian Sanderson of the Edmonton RCMP said the new formula reacts more potently in the brain.

Crystal meth is considered five to six times stronger than cocaine, he said in an interview.

It takes about two years of rehabilitation, he added, to kick the addiction.

The drug trend actually began in California in the late 1980s, Sanderson explained, and moved north into B.C. and Alberta. Throughout the 1990s, crystal meth continued to move across western Canada, through Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and has most recently arrived in Ontario and Quebec.

The Maritimes and the North have not experienced the drug on a large scale yet, he said.

'The northern drug markets are basically fuelled out of central points�-. Generally, you'll see the trend move from, say, Edmonton to Yellowknife, Vancouver to Whitehorse �- from Montreal and Ottawa up to Iqaluit.

'Once it shows up in those major centres, then very likely you're going to start to see a migration of it out to the seeder points, and obviously the North is part of that.'

Crystal meth is known by a variety of street names including 'meth,' 'crystal,' 'ice,' 'jib,' 'gak,' 'sketch,' 'speed,' 'glass,' 'shards,' 'crank,' 'tina' and 'peanut butter.'

Aird described the drug as 'highly, highly addictive' and made of poisonous, toxic chemicals.

'The biggest thing that people need is education on what it is, the harms of it, so that particularly our young people make an informed choice and don't try this drug.'

Communities across the territory are holding information sessions for the public and inviting speakers into schools to raise awareness about the implications of using and producing crystal meth, he said.

'They're taking action right now before it becomes more of a problem. Communities are addressing it, they're educating their people on it,' Aird said, noting that prevention begins with parenting.

The idea for tonight's meeting grew from public concern that crystal meth could move into the city, according to Patricia Bacon, one of the organizers.

'There's a lot of people who are concerned that crystal meth might be coming to our community and wondering what we can do about that,' she said. 'It has gotten into other communities and has been quite devastating in its effects.'

While the problem may be relegated primarily to certain neighbourhoods in larger cities, that would not be the case for Whitehorse, Bacon told the Star.

'We are such a small population. We see things. We see the problems of crack. We're a small community. Could we handle it if crystal meth came to our community?'

She noted that there are high-risk youth in Whitehorse who could be particularly vulnerable to crystal meth use.

'We care about our youth and we don't want this to happen to them.'

Crystal meth is made from a variety of household chemicals including drain cleaner, paint thinner, kerosene, starter fluid, lithium batteries, iodine, rubbing alcohol, lye and red phosphorous.

A key component to crystal meth is either ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, chemicals commonly found in cold and allergy medication.

They are called precursors. A precursor is a chemical that becomes a key part of a new substance after a chemical reaction.

In the case of crystal meth, ephedrine or pseudoephedrine becomes a key part of the illegal drug after it has been cooked with the cocktail of other chemicals.

While it has similar properties to cocaine in terms of addiction and the types of behaviours it causes, there is a key difference between these two drugs the high from crystal meth lasts many times longer.

While the high from cocaine lasts a maximum of one hour, according to Sanderson, the high from crystal meth can last up to 12 or 15 hours.

This makes helping meth users more difficult, Alsbury said.

'Because they're high for that much longer, they're not accessing services. They're not coming to outreach programs to get food or to get water because they're high and they're not hungry,' she said.

'How do we actually reach out to people who are using crystal meth if they're not even needing any of those services that people that are using cocaine often need?'

Meth is manufactured by heating the chemical cocktail, a process that is both toxic and highly explosive.

Labs can be found almost anywhere, according to a community-based health group in B.C., the province with the greatest number of drug labs.

'Clandestine labs can be found in apartments, houses, warehouses, vehicles, wooded areas, hotels, storage lockers other secluded places,' according to the Crystal Meth Victoria Society.

Labs are dangerous and pose a serious risk to public health, according to police.

'Drug cooks, who are not accomplished chemists with university degrees, do not respect the dangers associated with toxic chemicals. This often leads to tragic consequences such as fire, explosion and environmental pollution,' RCMP documents say.

While approximately 95 per cent of meth is produced in larger labs, about 95 per cent of police busts are on small home-based operations that produce about five per cent of the drug, Sanderson said.

Each lab, regardless of its size is considered a toxic site.

Shutting it down and cleaning it up requires many police and other public resources, Sanderson said.

'The home-based labs, in the grand scheme of things, they don't produce more than five per cent of the drug that's used. But they become about 95 per cent of the labs that are found by police and fire and other people,' he said in a phone interview Tuesday.

'It takes a tremendous amount of resources to handle them because they're toxic waste sites�- and they need to be dealt with in the same way as a large super-lab that's being run by an organized criminal group.'

Police say there are a number of signs to watch for if a meth lab is operating in the neighbourhood.

These include visitors and activity at all times of the day and night, darkened windows, chemical smells coming from buildings or garbage cans, signs of chemical dumping such as burn spots on the yard, residents who have money but don't seem to work and act secretive and paranoid in their behaviour, and garbage that includes many containers of the chemicals used to make the drug as well as coffee filters and sheets used to filter the concoction.

While preventing the encroachment of meth is a community responsibility, Sanderson said police have two main strategies for minimizing the number of labs.

The first is to provide addicts with treatment, counselling and support to help them kick the addiction before they begin producing their own meth.

The other main initiative, which is already underway in the Yukon, is to monitor the sale of products used to manufacture meth with the help of retailers.

In the Yukon, for example, pharmacists would monitor the large-scale sale of cold medicines that contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine.

Aird said no reports have been made to police so far.

The meeting will be held tonight at 7:00 at Grace Church in downtown Whitehorse. Residents looking for more information on meth labs can contact the Whitehorse RCMP.