Methamphetamine tearing its way through Saskatoon streets, homes and courts

Steven Bigsky says he doesn't think he actually hit the hostage in the head with a hammer.

Then again, the 22-year-old isnot sure.

Bigsky had been up for days on a meth binge before embarking on the violent Saskatoon home invasion that sent him to prison last week.

It was a case that featured a hook-up on the dating website Plenty 'O Fish, a drug dealer named Peanut, a stolen Mercedes Benz and a home invasion.

• Saskatoon's most vulnerable falling victim to methamphetamine

A case that veteran prosecutor Frank Impey says, with its violence and outlandish elements, is entirely typical of what's happening with methamphetamine in Saskatoon.

Never really gone

"That particular file was a very good example of what we're seeing day to day, which is that particular crime was, in Mr. Bigsky's case, he stated committed in order to feed his addiction" Impey said in an interview.

"He was very blunt and frank to the court that he was addicted to methamphetamine."

Prosecutor Frank Impey speaks about methamphetamine and crime in Saskatoon

8 years ago

Duration 0:41

Meth crime stressing police, courts and addictions workers.

Impey works at the provincial courthouse and deals with new arrests. As such, he's got a front row seat to the devastating impact of methamphetamine on the city.

"There are days in that court where you'll see half or two-thirds in custody that are somehow related to methamphetamine," he said.

"You will see strain on the courts, you will see strain on the remand system. As far as the custody docket system goes, people who are addicted are not good candidates for release."

Meth is a big issue now, but he said it really dates back a decade. The first wave hit the city around 2006 and police and social agencies hit back hard. The education and public awareness campaigns seemed to cut its popularity and availability.

It is a social scourge.-Frank Impey

But Impey said it never really left. The meth trade slipped below the court radar and then re-emerged with a vengeance about two years ago.

So far in 2016, according to police, arrests for trafficking and possessing methamphetaminehave almost doubled over the same time period last year.

Get what you buy

Robin Wintermute is a detective sergeant in the city's drug squad.

He says the eight street officers in the unit deal with meth on a daily basis. Wintermute said the drug is behind much of the break-and-enters and property crime in the city.

So what is the attraction of a highly-addictive drug that promotes violence and extremely poor decision making?

"It's relatively cheap as compared to a drug like cocaine, it's relatively available and, with a gram of meth you are going to get a gram of meth," he said.

Meth is a stimulant so its users "are not in a calm state of mind for the most part," he said.

Since meth can be made relatively easily in a home lab, Wintermute said the drug in Saskatoon comes from within Canada. Police believe the majority comes from clandestine labs in British Columbia, makingitsway through Edmonton and then to Saskatoon.

Policing not the solution

Saskatoon's police chief has said that the wave of meth in the city not a problem that police can solve with arrests, an assessment shared byImpey. This is a larger social issue that speaks to income, addictions and education..

"It is a social scourge," Impey said.

"We have to deal with the addictions and the mental health that comes from it as well."