Pubdate: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 Source: Langley Times (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 BC Newspaper Group and New Media Development Contact: http://www.langleytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1230 Author: Kelly Allen Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n547/a05.html?48833 COCAINE COLUMN WAS ACCURATE Editor: This letter is in response to the letter written by Phil and Tracy Bot (The Times, April 6) about the story "Langley has a dark secret." They said they thought Kristyl Cahill's column (The Times, April 1) sounded naive and ignorant. I don't agree. Yes, a lot of "homeless addicts" end up on the streets because of social, mental and financial issues. If they had said no to drugs in high school, maybe they would not be there now. My younger brother started doing drugs just before high school. His first experience was at the age of 10. Our doctor said it was an overdose of LSD. My brother swore to us up and down that someone had slipped it into his soft drink. It took two days for him to come down from the high. I stayed home from school to help my mom and dad out with him. He didn't start drugs because of any social problems. He came from a family that loved him. We grow up on the North Shore in a very nice neighborhood. We always felt because of the overdose at a young age, my brother would never try drugs again. Well, we where wrong. Once he got into high school, all hell broke loose. He started using drugs all the time. I was two years older than him and didn't realize how bad the drug problem was in our school. There was little or no education about it. This is back in the mid-1970s. My brother Brad died last year in an East Vancouver home of an overdose. As much as Phil and Tracy want to believe it doesn't start in high school, it very well can. My son is in high school in the Langley/Aldergrove district. He says drugs run rampant in the school system. Some of the kids will smoke pot in front of the school's main office, just to get a rise out of the teachers. And still we have no real education about the effects of drugs on our children at the school level. I am not worried about my son, because with the family history with my brother he has witnessed far too much in his short life. I have been told crack cocaine is so addictive that you are hooked almost the first or second time you try it. Do your children know how hard it is to get off drugs once they are hooked? You have no idea what this does to a family. My brother was a great guy and tried for years to get off drugs. He went through dozens of different programs to help him get off. The night he died, he had been clean for over four months. Brad had told my mother that if he ever went back on drugs he would have to take his own life because the need for crack cocaine was stronger than anything else in life. He died Jan. 6, 2004 of a self-inficted overdose of crystal meth and crack cocaine at the age of 43. My mother has aged 20 years in the past year. If we do not do something about this at the school level, there will be more and more mothers like my own mother, suffering from the loss of a son or daughter. Most parents don't want to believe their children are drug users. Educating parents to the signs of drug use in their children is also a great step. I know the signs far too well, and have not worried about my own son. He shows no signs yet of drug use and is a good student. At 14 years old, he already has his pilot's licence to fly planes and is on the honour roll at school. He would like to be a commercial pilot some day. If we want kids to have dreams like this, they have to know drugs break dreams, rip families apart and destroy lives. Is there no turning back once a child takes this path? Most likely not. Kelly Allen, Langley - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom