Pubdate: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 Source: Sun News (SC) Copyright: 2001 Sun Publishing Co. Contact: http://web.thesunnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987 Author: Gene Richardson Life Sentence DRUG USE CAN HAVE LIFE-ALTERING CONSEQUENCES This next May I will have been in prison for 24 years. I am serving a 20-year-to-life sentence because I killed someone while on drugs. When I was young, I was one of six children. I attended church on Sundays, and I was a Boy Scout until I was 18. I was not what you would call a bad kid. I started taking drugs when I was 9 years old back in the '60s. So many people were taking drugs back then, and I thought it would help me make friends. When I was young I liked to smoke pot, do quaaludes and cocaine. As I got older, I experimented with about every drug around. Back in the '60s drugs were a popular thing to do. I stayed high most all the time. There were many nights that I didn't remember what I did or how I got home. I would find out the next morning that I had driven home stoned out of my mind. One day my friends found me up a tree naked, I had been there for two days. The day I committed my crime I was doing PCP, quaaludes and alcohol; I was totally out of control. I didn't even realize what I had done until it was too late. One afternoon of getting high has ruined my life. I hate to think of the pain I have brought to the victim's family and my own family. You just don't realize how fast your life can be totally changed. I have spent more than half of my life paying for this crime. It was a crime that I never meant to commit, and one I will never be able to pay for no matter how long I live. I have learned many things from this experience. True friends will be your friends without taking drugs. You should never do anything that makes you lose control. Get high on life and make something of yourself. I would like to tell parents to be there for your kids, spend time with them and talk with them. Don't ever make your children feel that they can't come to you with a problem. Help them to respect and admire you, not be scared of you. No matter how long I live I will never be able to forget what I have done by taking another human's life. I never would have committed this crime if I had been straight, but I made the wrong choice 24 years ago when I chose drugs, and I'm so sorry. People call drugs "dope," but the dope is the person who puts it in their system. After all I've been through, I'm proud to say I've been drug- and alcohol-free for 24 years. Please learn from my mistakes and don't get involved with drugs. Richardson is serving time in Lieber Correctional Institution near Summerville. His wife lives in Marion. - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl