BLACK COALITION LAUNCHES ANTI-DRUG BLITZ

Specific Neighbourhoods Targeted. Young People Will Distribute
Leaflets, Talk To Vulnerable Teens This Summer

In the jargon of neighbourhood youngsters, it's called "taking a
buzz," Carmelia Florvil says.

Smoking marijuana - or, as Florvil referred to it, "du weed" - is
pitched among 12- and 13-year-olds as "just like smoking a
cigarette," she added.

So the dynamic and definitely drug-free 18-year-old will spend much
of this summer working on an anti-drug campaign.

The Black Coalition of Quebec launched the initiative yesterday at a
St. Michel community centre.

Florvil's message: "Life is beautiful - without drugs."

But the bilingual leaflets Florvil will deliver to households - and
discuss with vulnerable youngsters - feature a harder edge.

Slogans include Drugs + Fast Cash = Death and Give a hand to your
brother: not a bullet.

The campaign T-shirts condemn drugs and crime.

Co-ordinated by the coalition, Florvil and 24 other young people will
distribute the anti-drug leaflets to between 5,000 and 10,000
households in St. Michel, Montreal North and Little Burgundy "by the
end of August," said Max Laude, a Black Coalition social worker who
co-ordinates the group's youth program.

Just how prevalent is drug use among members of the black community
in St. Michel?

"That's a very delicate question," Laude replied, refusing to offer
even a rough estimate.

Well, then, where is drug use among the black community considered
worse: Little Burgundy, Montreal North or St. Michel?

"That's also very delicate."

There is a lot of drug use among young people these days, Florvil
said, without getting more specific.

"It's everywhere, not only in the black community."

While it's "mostly weed" among the young people Florvil encounters,
she said, some people are smoking crack cocaine.

St. Michel resident Wilnive Phanord, a mother of one interviewed at
random on her way home from grocery shopping, gave the leaflet a very
close read.

"This," she concluded, "is a good start."

But "there really is a lot more to do. We really have to reach inside
the homes and schools," Phanord added.

"So many parents are so busy these days, they're not aware of what
their children are doing," she said.

"There are a lot of single-parent families in St. Michel" - 46 per
cent of homes, in fact, vs. 36 per cent Montreal-wide.

"And then, when something happens, the parents say: 'Oh no, not my child.' "

"As a member of the Haitian community," Phanord said, "I think we
have to stop putting our hands in front of our eyes.

"We have to admit there is a problem."

Phanord, 26, immigrated to Canada from Haiti in 1986, and said she
could immediately think of "two or three" people she grew up with who
"went the wrong way."

She said she worries about what the future holds for her

2-year-old daughter, Leticia Alliance.

"We have to do this for the young people," she said of the anti-drug battle.

"Our children are our future."