In the past five years, the Saskatoon Health Region has had to adjust its treatment and detox methods to meet increasing demand from crystal meth users, whose detox and rehab needs are unique.

Meth users can be more violent, aggressive and disruptive to others when they arrive at the health region’s Brief and Social Detox Centre, said Muggli.

Relapse is also more common because the depression that follows detox can last months, increasing the need for suicide prevention supports. There’s no secondary drug, such as methadone for heroin users, to help wean people off crystal meth.

Even after Roberts lost her vision, she still wasn’t able to shake her addiction. She said users are chasing an impossible goal to get the same high they did when they first started using.

She tried to seek treatment through a 28-day rehab program but she said she was thrown out when they accused of her being under the influence, which she denies.

It often takes longer for crystal meth users to decide to pursue longer-term residential treatment. If they decide to do so, adults can wait up to eight weeks for a bed at the Calder Centre in Saskatoon.

This year, the health region created a client advisory committee, which recommended that people coming down from crystal meth have a quiet place to sleep off their extreme exhaustion. The health region has since implemented that change, and it also started extending treatment periods for crystal meth users who are still benefiting from the program.

Muggli said health regions across the province are dealing with the same problems.

Muggli wants to see a crystal meth-specific approach to detoxing, including a separate physical space for coming off the drug. She said another problem is that the Brief and Social Detox Centre is only staffed by paramedics at night and on weekends, so there is no physician on-hand to order medication needed to help a person through withdrawal.

For that reason, they sometimes have to be turned away.

“I think having broader medical support might help us to move people in and you want to be able to take advantage of the moment when people walk in the door,” said Muggli.

“[Otherwise], yeah they change their mind or you go back onto the street and you get high again and then, you know, that motivation that you had in that moment may be gone.”

Police Chief Clive Weighill said there simply aren't enough policing or treatment services in his city to cope with rapidly increasing demand.

“I think we really have to get serious about addiction services — period — in the province,” he said.