Pubdate: Thu, 08 Mar 2007
Source: Summerland Review (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Summerland Review
Contact:  http://www.summerlandreview.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1143
Author: John Arendt
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

STUDENTS HEAR ANTI-DRUG MESSAGE

A former drug user and dealer spoke to Summerland  students last week 
about making positive choices and  rejecting drug use

On Thursday morning, Serge LeClerc, director of Teen  Challenge 
Saskatchewan, spoke at Summerland Secondary  School and Summerland 
Middle School about his past.

He became a street kid when he was 12 years old and  started using 
drugs at 15. Later, he ran a criminal  gang with up to 70 members.

In the 1960s, he began selling drugs and in 1984 was  arrested and 
imprisoned after running a $40 million  drug operation.

"I didn't come here to brag about my past," he says. "I  was a very 
evil man. I destroyed many people's lives."

He spent more than 21 years in jail, the result of bad  choices he 
made starting when he was young.

When he was caught breaking into houses as a child in  Toronto, he 
was sent to St. John's Training School  where he was routinely beaten 
by the teachers and  abused by students.

Eventually, he became involved in more and more  criminal activity.

"Kids don't realize the choices they make today have an  impact for 
them and those around them," he says. "The  secret of life is about 
your choices."

He urges students to reject drug use, including  marijuana use, which 
he says can lead to harder drugs.

"I've never met anyone who was an addict who didn't  start with 
marijuana," he says.

He adds that when he was using drugs, it was to numb  the pain of 
abuses he had experienced and was  experiencing.

"You don't do drugs to feel good," he says, "you do  drugs not to feel bad."

LeClerc was brought to schools in Summerland and the  region by South 
Okanagan Similkameen Crime Stoppers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom