Pubdate: Sun, 14 Oct 2007
Source: Telegram, The (CN NF)
Copyright: 2007 The Telegram
Contact:  http://www.thetelegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/303
Author: Alisha Morrissey

FROM COCAINE TO INCARCERATION

Convicted Of Cocaine Trafficking, West Coast Teacher  Gives His Side
Of The Story

All Eugene Cook ever wanted to do is teach. But today,  after 20 years
of teaching high school English, Cook  sits in a jail cell, behind
high walls and barbed wire.

It's sadly ironic that his denim shirt has an open  book, pencil and
apple embroidered on the front, he's  got three days worth of growth
on his face and his  brown eyes are dull sitting under the watchful
eye of a  lieutenant at Her Majesty's Penitentiary in St. John's.

But when he speaks, he does so with his hands,  confident and
intelligent, as a high school teacher  should.

That is until, he's asked about his students.

"If I talk about that I'll probably shed a tear," he
says.

The most important lesson ever taught in Cook's  classroom at
Templeton Collegiate in Gillams was  respect.

Every year on the first day of school, he would spell  out the word in
capital letters on the blackboard and  explain why the concept was so
important.

"Respect is foundational to everything that goes on in  the classroom.
Everything that goes on in life," he  says.

Now, more than ever, he hopes his students have respect  for
him.

He says he hopes their parents, who may be judging him  following
media attention about his case, can still  respect him, too.

"I'm just trying to put myself in the parents' heads.  When you see
this, you know, they had kids that had  come through me and I'm sure
that they have thought  about whether or not I had crossed any
boundaries with  their children, and I just wanted to assure them that
  that was never, ever the case."

Of the thousands of students who passed through his  classroom, he
says, not one will be able to go to their  parents and say he was ever
inappropriate.

He says when he's out of jail and clean, he'd like to  go back to
teaching and, as far as he's concerned,  there's no reason he can't.

"I do not deserve to have my licence taken away," he  says, adding
that even the judge presiding over his  case felt that children were
not involved with the drug  abuse or trafficking.

Cook is also inviting parents, former students and the  public to
write to him and tell him how they feel. Take  him to task or support
him, he says he doesn't care, as  long as people say what they will to
his face.

With a weak smile, he says the first time he ever  snorted a line of
cocaine was when he was completing  his master's degree in teaching at
Memorial University  in the early 1990s.

After that, Cook used cocaine sporadically, as a  recreational drug,
something, he says, that never  interfered with his life.

"I graduated in 2003. I graduated to smoking crack," he  says rubbing
his hands on the back of his neck. "That's  a quantum leap. Or a
quantum fall."

For a year and a half, the addiction consumed him.

"There were times," he says, hands in a praying motion  and eyes to
the ceiling, "I said you're really, really  testing me to see what I'm
made of.

"It was just one bad thing after another. Nothing  seemed to go right,
and I sought refuge and found  refuge in a pretty powerful drug called
cocaine."

In fact, Cook, 52, says he's always had an obsessive
personality.

He's a smoker and a workaholic, and was always an  overachiever in
school, and during the past 34 years he  has played soccer.

"If I take something on, it's not halfway," he says. "I  worked very
hard at my job - too hard … my job  consumed me at times."

He says he sometimes reminded himself of the story of  the shoemaker,
the man who made the best shoes in the  world, while his own children
went barefoot. Cook, too,  says he didn't spend enough time with his
own two sons.

"When I was under the influence of cocaine, I would not  take my kids.
I would rather not see them," he says,  adding that "they're aware"
their father is in prison,  but that he and their mother have agreed
that until  he's dealt with some other issues, they will wait to  talk
to their sons about why.

He says he's ahead in his child-support payments and  he's given his
ex plenty of money to cover the collect  calls he'll be making to his
sons from prison.

High-end drug

Cook says he can't be specific about when his addiction  got out of
hand, because other people are involved, but  as far as he's concerned
it could happen to anyone who  finds themselves in the same position.

"It just happens. … I don't think anybody has  ever tried this
drug and didn't like it," he says,  adding that cocaine is a high-end
drug that is also  highly addictive. "It transcends all social strata."

In February 2005, Cook said, he'd had enough and asked  a friend to
take him to Humberwood, an  addictions-treatment centre in Corner Brook.

 From that day until his arrest in July, Cook says, he  was
clean.

When he was charged, and later in court when listening  to the
conversations police obtained from a tap on his  phone, Cooks says it
was like the past was coming to  haunt him.

Listening to the 95 or so tapes of wiretap evidence was  hard, he
says, compounded by the public attention.

"It took me back to a time in my life that I would just  as soon
forget. … I could just see and hear the  desperation, the
greater desperation, just creeping  into my voice," he says. "I could
hear it in my voice,  the words, the tone, that I had had enough of
this."

He started using the drug again.

"It's that magnetic, and it's that alluring, but it's a  big lie.
Cocaine is a big lie," he says.

"You get your feeling of exhilaration and all is well  and, 'gee, what
problems?' When you come down, the  devil rears its ugly head."

While awaiting trial on the cocaine charges, Cook was  caught with 2
1/2 pounds of marijuana in his car when  he was pulled over for a
broken taillight.

In the end, Cook was sentenced to serve 12 months, less  one day, on
the cocaine charges and 10 months on the  possession charge. He was
also given two months for  each of the four breaches of an undertaking
related to  his cocaine arrest.

"There's a law that says you're not supposed to traffic  in cocaine,
well OK. But there's trafficking in cocaine  and then there's
trafficking in cocaine," he says.  "You're looking at two months when
there was no cocaine  to be fetched in Corner Brook or Stephenville,
but  there was some available very close to my house."

Takes responsibility

While he says he takes responsibility for what he's  been convicted
of, Cook would like to see a distinction  in drug laws and sentencing
for people who are shipping  in crates of the drug and those who "run
down the road  and get it for you and a handful of your own friends."

Of the 20 or so others who were charged in the RCMP  trafficking sting
called Operation Bitten, Cook says,  his charges were the most minor,
but his name was the  one splashed in headlines.

Cook, who was suspended from his job when he was  arrested, continued
to use cocaine throughout the time  he was waiting to be sentenced.

"It's a very tough drug to kick. It is incredible."

He says he identifies with another public addict, actor  Daniel
Baldwin.

Cook says he recently heard an interview with Baldwin,  where he
described himself as a die-hard cokehead.

"It may as well have been me talking," Cook says of the  interview
where Baldwin talked about his nine stints in  rehab, overdoses and
multiple arrests over the 18 years  he's battled addiction.

Cook says he last got high about four weeks ago.

He requested that he serve his jail time in Nova Scotia  or
Stephenville, where addictions programs are  available.

"Do I feel the tug? Sure I'd be lying to say that I  wasn't …
that'll probably always be true," he  says.

"When I look around at where I am, where would I rather  be? Would I
rather be in behind bars here at Her  Majesty's Penitentiary or would
I rather be high on  cocaine, you know ..."
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