EVERETT — Welcome to Tweakerville.
It’s a place you never planned to go, but once you’re there you’ll never be the same.
Your teeth will rot out. You’ll spend night after night wide awake and paranoid. You won’t worry about the chemicals eating away at your brain. You won’t care that your life isn’t yours anymore.
Tweaking is the name used on the streets for taking the drug methamphetamine.
"Using methamphetamine is like firing a gun at your head," retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said Thursday. "(It) is the worst thing that has hit this country."
Nearly 1,000 young people gathered at the Everett Events Center on Thursday to hear the former Clinton administration drug czar and other experts talk about the devastating effects of drugs at the third annual Snohomish County Youth Meth Summit.
Organizers were excited with the number of youths who attended this year’s event, saying attendance was equal to the first two years combined.
The young people came in lettermen’s and leather jackets, KISS T-shirts and college sweat shirts. They came from Granite Falls and Mukilteo. And many had the same thing to say: They see drugs at school; they know someone who has used meth; and teen drug abuse is more prevalent than most adults realize.
"I think it’s worse than people think it is," said Natasha Nelson, 18, of Arlington High School .
Middle school students as young as 11 said they have classmates who use illegal drugs.
"I see it every day at school," said 17-year-old Matt Lee, who attends Mukilteo School District’s ACES Alternative High School in Everett. McCaffrey said the majority of middle-school students do not use drugs. The key is to keep it that way through their teen years, he added.
"If you make it to your senior year in high school, you’re safe," he said.
Students need to be involved in constructive activities. There needs to be more after-school and summer programs, he said.
"The most important thing is drug prevention education," McCaffrey said.
Parents should be ashamed of themselves if they don’t talk to their children about drugs, he added, since kids are more afraid of disappointing the people they love than being arrested by police.
"I do think kids listen," said McCaffrey, who upon retiring was the youngest and most highly decorated four-star general in the Army.
Thursday, speakers talked about the devastating effects the drug has on the human body and the hazards of cleaning up meth labs. As part of the program, Snohomish County sheriff’s SWAT team members staged a mock bust of a garbage-strewn drug house and hauled off the inhabitants in handcuffs.
At the end of the day, students were divided about whether the summit was likely to have a lasting effect.
"I think it will make a little difference. It was my old drug of choice, and I didn’t know much about it at all when I started using," said a Cascade High School 10th-grader who asked not to be named. "If people see how terrible it is and that they could die from it, maybe they won’t try it."
The girl, 15, said she used the drug for a year before seeking treatment.
"Sometimes I want to go back to it, because it’s that addictive," she said. "(But) I went through a lot, and I know what it does to you."
Some students said they enjoyed the all-day gathering because it was more than a health lecture.
"They’re making it fun, and when they do that people see there’s more fun things to do than using," said Nick Ferguson, an Everett High School 11th- grader.
Shaun Cuvreau, 15, a 10th-grader at Granite Falls High School, said he didn’t know until the summit that you can die from using meth. But he doubted that would persuade all students to stay away from the drug.
"Some people don’t care," he said. "They’re going to do it no matter what."
Jayson Peters, 29, one of the program’s speakers, admitted he was a former meth addict and said he hopes students who heard him speak never have to find out how the drug can tear apart their lives.
"Nothing good can come from using meth. Absolutely nothing," said Peters, who said he was convicted of five felonies and went to treatment six times before he stopped using the drug.
"I was tired of seeing my mom through the visiting glass at the King County Jail," he said. "I just hope that some of these kids won’t go through what I did, and that addicts know there’s help."
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
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