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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Admittedly, Steve Walton knows a lot about drugs.

Walton has been inside about 850 marijuana grow-ops. He can make methamphetamine in 15 minutes: "All I need are things I can get from the drug store."

Former Calgary undercover police officer Steve Walton discussed the basics of street drugs with Yellowknifers last week. - Lauren McKeon/NNSL photo

The former Calgary police officer has been on 1,200 undercover drug jobs in his seven years on the city's undercover street team. What he saw during those years "alarmed me and intrigued me," said Walton.

Over the last week and a half, Walton shared his experiences from that time and his wealth of basic knowledge about drugs in several presentations titled "Getting the Dope on Dope," including one presentation at Northern United Place given to an audience of about 90 Yellowknifers.

Walton also spoke to several schools, more than 100 health care providers and, after a cancelled trip to Fort Resolution, a mix of people at the Tree of Peace's Living in Balance program on Nov. 6.

Everyone "who's in here, is here for a reason," said one attendee at Thursday's presentation.

"The presentation that he does is different for each group," said Jill Christensen, manager of integrated services at Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority. "This is one thing that's really impressed me - is that the presentation for people (earlier in the week) was quite different than this afternoon. He approaches other subjects."

Health and Social Services, which secured funding from the Northern Region of the Public Health Agency of Canada, organized the presentations in conjunction with the SideDoor Youth Centre.

Walton didn't offer much in the way of Yellowknife-specific knowledge during his presentations, but that wasn't the intent, said Christensen.

"A lot of people feel they just need basic knowledge. They don't know what it looks like, they don't know the jargon, they don't know what it does in the body, so this is basic," she said.

"This is more knowledge and awareness. I think if there was going to be Yellowknife specific information that would be involving the RCMP here," Christensen added.

Those basics included how each of the big drugs - heroin, cocaine, crack-cocaine, marijuana, crystal meth, ecstasy - worked, the demographics of those using them, what they look like, what they're called on the street, their effects and how to tell if someone was using them.

Walton also warned about the future trends in drugs - and many people's ignorance about marijuana use.

Many parents say they know their children are smoking pot, he said, but say "at least they're not smoking crack."

"That tells me they don't know about marijuana," said Walton. "If they knew, they wouldn't be saying that. They wouldn't be happy."

Most marijuana in the 1970s contained one to three per cent THC - the plant's main psychoactive substance. Now it's about 17 per cent.

People look at the "pothead" that can't remember something that happened a little while ago and they joke about it, said Walton.

"That's brain damage ... that's not funny," he added. "People don't have the right facts."