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Marty's story

Drugs turn Whistler dream into nightmare death

In the late evening on Tuesday Sept. 2, a 19-year-old Australian was found dead in his room in staff housing after a run of the mill night on the town.

The cause of death was likely a lethal combination of cocaine and sleeping pills, which stopped his heart. The coroner's report is not yet finalized.

He was found in his bed, long hours after he had died, alone and icy cold. Less than a month later, he was buried at St. Gregory's Catholic Church on a hill overlooking a sunny valley in Kurrajong outside of Sydney, immersed in a sea of love of hundreds of family and friends.

In the weeks and months that followed, most people in Whistler remained blindly unaware a teenager, working here for a season or two, had died from a toxic mixture of drugs involving cocaine — an illicit drug that is accessible, cheap, and prolific in the resort.

Cocaine use isn't an anomaly, and Whistler isn't unique.

Just as drugs are everywhere, they are here in Whistler too. There's MDMA or E, Special K (or ketamine), GHB, acid — an alphabet of choice that can have deadly consequences.

These drugs don't have the same dangerous downtown reputation as heroin, crack and fentanyl. They are "recreational, white-collar drugs," as normal in some circles as a glass of wine or a beer. They're designed to make you happy and confident and euphoric and uninhibited. They are designed to make you want more.

It's a darker side of Whistler, though drugs like these have been here for decades, stealthily settling in to the subculture, weaseling into a town where young people come to suck the most out of life.

This is Whistler's schizophrenia — renowned pristine powder days marketed around the world, morphing into endless powder nights that can turn seedy and dangerous in a flash. But no one really wants to talk about that.

On the other side of the world Jennifer and Cees Janson were just about to find out about the dark side of Whistler — a discovery that would flip their lives upside down, forever.

The net of grief is cast

Just over an hour outside of Sydney, about 10 kilometres outside a sleepy country town called East Kurrajong, night had fallen on Wednesday Sept. 3.

Jennifer and Cees Janson are empty nesters, their three grown children making their own ways around the world. Only daughter Anneka, their eldest, was close-by in Sydney, a new mum herself, after baby George arrived three weeks earlier. Russell, 24, was studying in Singapore. Their youngest, Marty, was in Canada.

The Jansons were spending a quiet evening at home, a night like any other.

At 9:30 p.m. two police officers knocked on the door.

"Have you got a son Martin Janson?" one calmly asked.

"Yes, he's in Canada," they answered.

"We've come to talk to you about your son Martin."

"Yes, yes, he's in Canada."

"We need to come in."

"But Martin's not here."

Confusion. The beginning of a deep-down dread. Willfully staving off perhaps an inevitable awful truth for just a few more moments.

"We need to come in," they pressed. "We need to tell you that your son has passed away in Canada."

And there it was... that moment in time. That instant when life included Marty one minute, followed by the hard truth that life from now on would be without him.

It's been a few months now, but the events are still a raw, gaping wound that refuses to heal.

"I try not to remember that night," says Jennifer over Skype.

The neighbours were called in to help, scrambling to call Canada to confirm what the Australian police were telling them, to try to understand what had happened.

And then the net of grief needed to be cast, a web of awful truth, thrown from Canada to Australia to Singapore and beyond.

In a fog of heartache and despair, Cees and Jennifer prepared for the long journey to Whistler, to bring their boy back home, to understand the circumstances that led to his death. What went wrong and how could it have been prevented?

Even now, as the memories come and go, it's the questions that persist, lingering on, forever unanswered.

How did it start? Why was he taking drugs? What made it so normal to be taking cocaine on a night out? Who made the dealer connections?

What went wrong for Marty? Why Marty?

"That's the hardest thing," says Jennifer. "He was so full of life. He was so contagious. He was so much fun to be around."

And he had so much potential.

"It should never have happened," she says. "This should not have happened."

In an effort to prevent it from happening to anyone else, even if it prevents just one more careless overdose death, Jennifer is speaking out, telling Marty's story, as excruciating as it is to relive the details. "These are the sorts of things I think will have an impact," she says. "Because dead is dead and dead means you're not coming back."

Marty's story

Marty's story begins like so many others in Whistler — a young Australian looking to work in Canada for a year or two.

He applied for a job through the Working Holiday Club and did his interview over Skype in the middle of the night. He got the job, a houseman for a five-month contract, beginning last May.

"He's always been a very adventurous person, always trying something new, something different, even from a little boy," recalls his mum, sitting at the computer in her sunny kitchen on the other side of the world.

Marty was healthy, into body building and working out, a fit person well suited to the job as houseman, rushing around the hotel on various errands. He had applied for a job as ski concierge for the winter months as well.

"He had plans," says Jennifer. "He had so many plans."

Whistler was just the beginning. Europe was in the cards next — among the many places to visit, was Norway where he had spent five months when he was 16 years old, with a host family.

"He was just the most smiley person in this building," says the director of human resources for the hotel where Marty worked and lived onsite in staff housing. (The hotel, and Marty's family, has asked that information which may identify the hotel not be printed.)

One of the youngest employees at the hotel, Marty made the most of his time, packing in more during one summer than most do in a lifetime here — hikes to Joffre Lakes, floating down the River of Golden Dreams, playing softball, hiking up Blackcomb Mountain to take a selfie.

"In some ways," says Jennifer, her voice cracking, "that was probably his downfall."

That insatiable appetite to be a part of it all.

The picture from his trek up Blackcomb says it all — arms outspread, bright red shorts, sunnies and a huge smile. The world at his feet. Invincible.

Judging from his Facebook accounts, Marty's parents believe he started taking cocaine in the summer, once a week or so. Those same messages show that it was par for the course in Whistler, a drug that cost four times as much in Australia as here, and it was easy to get.

On Monday Sept. 1, the Labour Day long weekend in Canada, Marty and his friends planned to go out. Tuesday was his day off.

The night began with some drinks and lines of cocaine. The friends left for a village bar around 10:30 p.m. and stayed out until 3 a.m.

Jennifer believes, though the story gets a little blurry here, that they did more cocaine on their return to staff housing.

Around 6 a.m. Marty took two sleeping pills — believed to be prescription pills.

He went to his room and began chatting to a girlfriend in Australia over Facebook.

"Around 6:45 to 7 a.m. Whistler time on the Tuesday morning, the conversation just stopped mid-sentence," says Jennifer, breaking, the story just too much to bear in the retelling. "And from that... we understand that's when he fell asleep or that's when he died."

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The Jansons arrived in Whistler in the days following Marty's death. It's all a blur now. Hotel staff were by their sides throughout it all, helping them navigate the process of talking to the coroner, dealing with the funeral home, holding a memorial service, trying to soak in Marty's last home away from home, the place he travelled across the world to experience.

Those days unfolded in a haze; the Jansons were just going through the motions.

The hotel's HR director said she had help from other resort partners — companies that have been down this path before for one reason or another, losing a young employee in the prime of their lives.

"It was really about supporting the parents," she said of those early September days.

There was a memorial service at Lost Lake on Sept. 9. It was beautiful, recalls Jennifer, of the service where sunflowers were released to float on the water. About 50 people came to the service, mostly from the hotel where Marty worked.

Jennifer and Cees gave a eulogy. It wasn't just about Marty. It was a message to the people there — a plea.

You don't have to add these drugs to you life, they told Marty's friends and colleagues. You have enough personality without them.

"If it had an impact on one person, or none, I don't know," says Jennifer. "There's no way to quantify. You can't tell."

On their journey back to Australia, Jennifer decided she wanted to have a "life art" coffin for Marty's final send-off. It took three days to cover that white coffin in family pictures, inside messages, motorcycles and rainbows, handprints and painted sunflowers, and heartbreaking notes of loss — all telling the story of a kind and adventurous young man on the brink of life's journey.

Cees' heartfelt note on the top reads: "We had a short stay in Whistler, what a beautiful place. No wonder you loved it so much. We will be back. Keep an eye on those young people."

The agony and the unending grief unravel over the Internet, through Skype, travelling over space and time, over oceans and continents.

Jennifer pulls a calendar off the wall to confirm the day Marty came home, a calendar that marks the birthdays, appointments and special days of the Janson family.

"Yes, the 22nd of September, Martin arrived back in Australia," she says matter of fact, looking at the calendar page.

For these are the new time-stamp markings life now: Sept. 2, the day Marty died; Sept. 30, his funeral; Dec. 23, his 20th birthday, a date that he never got to celebrate.

'Everyone in Whistler does coke'

Davin Moore has heard the line many times before — everyone in Whistler does coke.

"I think for some of these young adults, that's what they see and that's what they're exposed to," says the outreach supervisor for Whistler Community Services Society (WCSS).

"If your entire peer group is into doing cocaine, then you kind of assume that everyone is doing it."

Not everyone in Whistler is doing cocaine. But in some segments of society here, as it is in other towns and cities, it is rife.

Moore has worked at WCSS for the past seven years. He knows what's going on in the underbelly of town and on its surface too; he sees the problems firsthand.

"Absolutely. Absolutely," says Moore. "We support people through any type of addiction and definitely cocaine is something we see relatively frequently here" (see sidebar above).

Is Whistler any different than anywhere else? Is cocaine easier to get here than in Vancouver? Is it more socially acceptable here than other towns?

Those are the elusive questions.

Whistler has a disproportionate number of young adults relative to its population. It caters to tourists who come here to have a good time.

One any given night there's something to do, always a party to be found, people to hang with. There are drug dealers willing to drop off goods for a premium; others meet at designated spots.

"I find too with some young adults it's the only way they're able to connect with (others)," says Moore of the party scene. "That is the most obvious way for them to make friends."

The human resources director at the hotel where Marty worked had no idea cocaine use was as widespread as it is — a discovery she made as she looked into Marty's death.

While there had been the odd case of marijuana use with employees at the hotel, nothing of this magnitude had ever happened. It was an eye-opener to a world beyond the façade.

"I learned just how prevalent, or just how regular it was, by going through this process," she says. "To me, it's a problem."

It's a problem, she added, whether or not Whistler is just like every other place — drugs are easy to get, if you're looking for them.

In the aftermath of the crisis created by Marty's death, she searched for answers to help understand what happened, to see if there had been other cases like his.

She was shocked by what she didn't find. Though support groups and drug counselling is available, there was nothing to indicate what she was learning firsthand on the ground — how far-reaching cocaine use was in certain parts of the community, how normal it was to take on any given night.

"I didn't find stories about incidences... I was surprised that I didn't see more information out there (about how commonly it is used), " she says.

Whistler RCMP Staff Sgt. Steve LeClair knows of the Janson file though the case was handed over to the coroner in the hours after he was found.

Possession of cocaine files at the Whistler RCMP have almost doubled in the last year — 15 from January to December in 2013 compared to 27 in 2014 for the same time period.

But drug files can be tricky, LeClair cautions. They may not be an absolute indicator that cocaine use is on the rise, more an indication perhaps, he says, that the police are on the lookout.

"We've got some young constables that are out looking for that as well, so they might be detecting more than they have in previous years," he says. "They're becoming more attuned to it."

Early last December, Whistler RCMP busted a 20 year old from Burnaby brazenly snorting something brown up his nose from the back of a cell phone in the middle of the village. A subsequent search revealed a plastic baggie of MDMA in his front vest pocket. He's not the first to get busted snorting something up his nose in public. The same happened in last April, this time in a village parking-lot stairwell, when police happened upon a trio doing lines off a phone. Again in August at 3:30 a.m. on a chance alarm call — police found two men in their early twenties with more lines on their phone. This week RCMP made a sizable drug bust arresting two Australian nationals.

Statistics provided by Vancouver Coastal Health for the Whistler Health Care Centre paint another part of the picture.

In 2014 there were 82 visits to the centre for overdoses/intoxication — 17 due to alcohol, five due to prescription or over the counter medications, four due to illicit drugs (none cocaine) and 56 unknown causes. As a percentage of total visits, this number jives with the average of the five previous years.

But like the drug bust stats, those stats are unlikely to provide a whole picture either. Often patients come in with lacerations, or anxiety, or a broken bone, and during their treatment it comes out that they've taken drugs. So overdose numbers alone don't give the whole picture.

"So often there's other diagnoses that go along with it," says local chief of staff at the health care centre, Dr. Bruce Mohr.

Over the Christmas holidays Mohr was called in during the night to deal with someone going through the adverse effects of these kinds of drugs — vomiting, biting, soiling themselves, oblivious to their mess. He's had three calls, involving illicit drugs, in a two-week period. That is not uncommon.

"It's not like in the city where they're more into heroin, fentanyl, things like that, even crack," says Mohr.

"They seem to be common, recreational, white-collar drugs up here."

From his experience on the job, it's not uncommon for people to pre-drink before the bars and pop a pill, or do a line, at the same time.

The adverse effects, however, are not pretty, no matter how white collar the drugs.

"People are unable to look after themselves," says the doctor. "It's not a pretty sight."

Just recently, says Mohr, police officers were helping restrain an out-of-control drugged-up patient, who was vomiting and urinating on himself. One officer looked at the doctor and said "They don't pay us enough to do this", referring to the frontline workers who face the brunt of it.

Cocaine, MDMA, or E may not always create the same reactions; it depends on the various states of a person's well-being. Often they are in various states of health — sleeplessness or dehydration. Drugs on one night can be a great high, but the next can create a bad reaction.

And ultimately it's all in the hands of the drug dealers.

"You're ingesting drugs that are made by criminals who have no care in the world for your well-being," states LeClair. "All they're concerned about is how much money they can make off you. They don't care if you die. Because if you do, they'll just find another customer."

The impact — lasting or not?

This past December, however, the late night antics at the health care centre and the local cop shop were the last thing on the minds of guests staying at the hotel where Marty worked — they were here to celebrate the festive season.

For them, Whistler over the holidays was about a sparkling village decked out in fairy lights; a world of adventure waiting to be explored in the mountains; luxury, good food, a welcome respite from the world.

And there was "Marty the Elf, the Elf on the Shelf" who appeared in a different spot every morning after reporting back to Santa in the evening, delighting the younger hotel guests.

On Dec. 23 Marty the Elf was decked out in a special crown, along with a cookie and candle. It would have been Marty's 20th birthday.

The human resources director says she underestimated the initial impact of Marty's death.

"Marty had only started here in May," she says. "To be honest, the night that it happened, I underestimated the impact."

The next morning, sharing the news with staff, it was a different story.

"It was in that moment when we were speaking to the housekeeping team... you just realize the weight of this... He was 19.

"Although the time was short, it was quality. It was a lot of time together. They worked together, they lived together. It really was like losing a best friend. The impact was enormous on the hotel."

None of Marty's closest work-based friends decided to stay on and work in Whistler for the winter.

While the hotel has always had a component of alcohol and drug education in orientation, it was not extensive and save for a few motherly words on being careful, it dealt mostly with the hotel policies.

At the Whistler Community Services Society there are plans to double the budget for counselling assistance program, which deals with, among other things, people who are battling drugs.

"I think the community can absolutely be doing more to help spread awareness about the programs that exist now," says Moore.

Staff Sgt. LeClair can't get into detail about where these drugs are coming from and who's bringing them in. It is an ongoing battle for police.

"We have a number of ongoing investigations into drugs and making in-roads in that regard," he says. "So I'm not really able to say where it's coming from."

The fight continues.

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In East Kurrajong life goes on.

Cees pops onto the screen on Skype to say he is off to work. He's an electrician.

"I'm just listening in here but I have to go," he says with a gentle smile and a nod. "See ya."

He leans down to give his wife a kiss goodbye.

Jennifer, a registered nurse, turns back to the screen; she's desperate for people to know what has happened, to tell her son's story to stop it from happening again.

But how to make a difference? They plan on coming back to Whistler in September again. They hope to bring the rest of the family, to show them the places that Marty loved. And, they have a mission.

"How do you change the culture, how do you change the culture of the young that this is what you do when you come here?" asks Jennifer.

Like so many people who come to Whistler, says Jennifer, Marty was cut from different cloth, not content for just an ordinary life.

"All those young people that go to Whistler, or any other country to work, they've all got that get up and go, they all want to do something different, they want to make something for themselves," she says.

"He was going to be a community leader. Whatever he was going to do, he would have done it really well.

"It's just the total loss. The total waste. The waste of his life."

Marty's future is forever a blank canvas, a question of what may have been. For his family, however, one part of the future is already mapped out. Yes, there is still joy still to be found, in baby George and in their two children, in their friends and family but there is another certainty about what is to come. And Jennifer knows it.

"(We'll) be sad," she says, "for the rest of (our) life." 

Whistler Community Services Society

Help is a phone call away for anyone struggling with drug addiction.

Whistler Community Services Society (WCSS) provides free and confidential outreach support for youth, adults and families in Whistler.

Among the problems the local youth outreach workers can help with are: drug and alcohol misuse, hunger, housing, employment, eating disorders, relationships, roommate conflict, mental health, homesickness.

"As outreach workers, we're here to support clients through whatever it is they're going through, and see what steps they feel like they need to take for themselves," says outreach supervisor Davin Moore.

Outreach workers like Moore know the system, and how to navigate it. They have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips; they can recommend a next level of care, be it one-on-one counselling, or group help.

WCSS has a Counselling Assistance Fund, which subsidizes financially restricted individuals, couples and families who would like to see a counsellor but cannot afford the cost.

In addition, WCSS is looking at creating a database outlining which local employers provide benefits as well as the nature of them.

Says Moore: "I think that the community can absolutely be doing more to help spread awareness about the programs that exist now."

Outreach workers

Ashlin Tipper

604.902.0670

ashlin@mywcss.org

Davin Moore

604.938.3902

davin@mywcss.org

Jackie Dickinson

604.902.5089

jackie@mywcss.org



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