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JnEverett

Welcome to hell
12-06-06 l Cowichan News Leader l Peter Rusland

Fourteen Valley students visited hell last week.

Their Scared Straight tour of downtown Vancouver’s drug-infested eastside between Thursday and Saturday made impressions on 10 hand-picked teens taking part in Duncan-North Cowichan’s Breaking The Cycle program lead by Pierre Morais.

Pupils’ reactions to meeting and watching homeless addicts on their home turf were captured on video shot by four Cowichan secondary film students led by teacher Mike Moroz.

Some tour footage will be used in Cowichan Theatre’s Dec. 16 multi-media production Light of Grace while Moroz’s students will edit two documentaries from their video footage that should be ready for screening in early 2007.

“Before going we judged all addicts as a stereotypic group but we found everyone has a stories and they’re real people,” says CSS film student Stephanie Androsoff, 18.

Addicts warned the students not to follow their descent into heroin and crack use, a trip that often starts with gateway drugs such as booze and marijuana.

“Some people really admired what we were doing and wanted to tell us their stories to prevent others from falling into their situation; none of them wanted to be there,” reports Androsoff.

Frances Kelsey secondary student Kenny Dallaway, 16, was part of Morais’ group.

“I wanted to be part of it to see what it’s like for them and see what they’re living like. Many are really nice and others are aggressive.”

That’s the simple reality of the contradictory eastside, hints Morais.

“It’s ugly and scary and people there say, ‘Welcome to hell.’

“They also say ‘God bless you’ but they all say ‘Don’t do drugs and stay away from this shit and listen to your parents.’”

“They all said marijuana is the gateway drug and cautioned us about getting comfortable with it because you start trying other things,” says Androsoff.

“We got two guys to light up a crack pipe for us and they didn’t care if we filmed them.”

Dallaway’s message from Scared Straight is “don’t get into heavy drugs because that (skid row) is where you’ll end up.”

“Lots of people said it starts with marijuana. The shock was seeing people that were high on drugs and what things they do to get drugs; they’d beat each up for a piece of crack.”

He calls the program “very worthwhile.”

“You’re seeing first-hand what it is like rather than hearing about it.

“The tour should be part of school where Grade 11s or 12s go on it.”

Morais picked 10 pupils from some 80 Valley pupils who applied to take part in Scared Straight.

“I chose the ones with the most powerful reasons for coming,” he says, regretting more kids couldn’t go.

“I’d love to be able to talk all the kids to this because it’s saving kids’ lives.”

Androsoff agrees.

“Everybody should have a chance to be in this program. I’ve never used drugs but I couldn’t sleep for the past two nights from thinking of something someone said or someone I saw.”

She relates a blunt anti-drug warning from one female addict and one ex-con’s story of befriending a cat in jail.

He did drugs after being released then went clean after seeing the emaciated remains of his abandoned pet.

“The biggest problem is the gateway stuff,” says Morais.

“ No one starts by shooting up on heroin. We live in an addictive society that promotes addiction and kids are set up to become addicts.

“There’s serious addiction is in every community.

“Duncan won’t ever become like the downtown eastside because (addicts) leave their community and go to bigger centres where they can be anonymous.

“Vancouver’s an easy place to be an addict.”

Moroz agrees.

“It’s easy to write them off if you’ve never seen any of these people,” he says. “One guy named Sebastian speaks four languages and had a soccer scholarship but now he’s a morphine addict.

“He just didn’t know how to get out.”

Moroz called the observations around Harbour Lights Treatment Centre, a detox facility, Pigeon Park, and shooter’s alley “the school of life” contrasted by rich yuppies and homeless addicts.

“There’s an overwhelming tragedy playing itself out there,” he said.

Androsoff says it opened her eyes.

“People have to realize this can happen to them. We look at the homeless through a TV screen that you can turn off but you can’t turn off their lives once you see them.”

 

Buzzby

Ho-hum... Ask any Skid Row alcoholic and he'll tell you it starts with one beer. What has that got to do with reality? It's a fact that some people can't handle drugs. Once they get started they can't stop. It's also a fact that the vast majority of marijuana users never go on to use hard drugs.

Slogans like "Just say no!" don't work. Scare tactics don't work. Real information that covers what the real dangers of drugs are is what people, especially teenagers, need. Joe Teenager who smoked out with his buddies last night is going to get a lot of laughs out of the Skid Row tour. His non-smoking friends will experience some moments of confusion when they measure this normal, pot-smoking kid against the Skid Row bums and ask, "What has this got to do reality?"

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reggie_the_dog

Well on the bright side the kids will all know where to score.

vladimir

weird thing is, at the edge of this district (or somewhat in it, depending on how you see it), is the new amsterdam cafe where you can buy and smoke pot.

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If a drug (or technique or process) were ever to be discovered which would consistently produce a plus four experience in all human beings, it is conceivable that it would signal the ultimate evolution, and perhaps the end of, the human experiment.

reggie_the_dog

If I was a teacher leading this tour I would make sure to make a pit stop at the New Amsterdam Cafe.

 

1tokeovertheline

Good point Buzzby. I am an alcoholic (been dry over 20 yrs. now), but my wife, boths sons, girlfriend and wife drink. They drink in moderation, I can't do that, but they can. I have smoked marijuana for over 30 years and never knowingly did any hard drugs. A guy put a line of powder in a joint once and I didn't know it until after it was smoked. In my mind being an alcoholic actually kept me away for other drugs. I knew I would like coke, etc, because of my alcohol problem. I had a little problem with pot when I was younger, but now I will go over a month without smoking although I never run out. Thanks to the friendly local "farmers".

newgrowerNY

Are they saying that because they smoked marijuana , they had no choice but to do harder drugs ? Don't they have a choice to be sitting there smoking crack.

.. "uh gee wiz billy .. we smoked pot .. the rule book says we gotta hang out and smoke crack all day now"

Once again if you use you have to smoke crack .. somehow thats the way it is The people that are doing this have a choice. They choose to fight over crack Not my choice, but its what they decided to do with their time.

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