WELCOME TO HELL

Fourteen Valley Students Visited Hell Last Week.

Their Scared Straight tour of downtown Vancouver's drug-infested
eastside between Thursday and Saturday made impressions on 10
hand-picked teens taking part in Duncan-North Cowichan's Breaking The
Cycle program lead by Pierre Morais.

Pupils' reactions to meeting and watching homeless addicts on their
home turf were captured on video shot by four Cowichan secondary film
students led by teacher Mike Moroz.

Some tour footage will be used in Cowichan Theatre's Dec. 16
multi-media production Light of Grace while Moroz's students will
edit two documentaries from their video footage that should be ready
for screening in early 2007.

"Before going we judged all addicts as a stereotypic group but we
found everyone has a stories and they're real people," says CSS film
student Stephanie Androsoff, 18.

Addicts warned the students not to follow their descent into heroin
and crack use, a trip that often starts with gateway drugs such as
booze and marijuana.

"Some people really admired what we were doing and wanted to tell us
their stories to prevent others from falling into their situation;
none of them wanted to be there," reports Androsoff.

Frances Kelsey secondary student Kenny Dallaway, 16, was part of Morais' group.

"I wanted to be part of it to see what it's like for them and see
what they're living like. Many are really nice and others are aggressive."

That's the simple reality of the contradictory eastside, hints Morais.

"It's ugly and scary and people there say, 'Welcome to hell.'

"They also say 'God bless you' but they all say 'Don't do drugs and
stay away from this shit and listen to your parents.'"

"They all said marijuana is the gateway drug and cautioned us about
getting comfortable with it because you start trying other things,"
says Androsoff.

"We got two guys to light up a crack pipe for us and they didn't care
if we filmed them."

Dallaway's message from Scared Straight is "don't get into heavy
drugs because that (skid row) is where you'll end up."

"Lots of people said it starts with marijuana. The shock was seeing
people that were high on drugs and what things they do to get drugs;
they'd beat each up for a piece of crack."

He calls the program "very worthwhile."

"You're seeing first-hand what it is like rather than hearing about it.

"The tour should be part of school where Grade 11s or 12s go on it."

Morais picked 10 pupils from some 80 Valley pupils who applied to
take part in Scared Straight.

"I chose the ones with the most powerful reasons for coming," he
says, regretting more kids couldn't go.

"I'd love to be able to talk all the kids to this because it's saving
kids' lives."

Androsoff agrees.

"Everybody should have a chance to be in this program. I've never
used drugs but I couldn't sleep for the past two nights from thinking
of something someone said or someone I saw."

She relates a blunt anti-drug warning from one female addict and one
ex-con's story of befriending a cat in jail.

He did drugs after being released then went clean after seeing the
emaciated remains of his abandoned pet.

"The biggest problem is the gateway stuff," says Morais.

" No one starts by shooting up on heroin. We live in an addictive
society that promotes addiction and kids are set up to become addicts.

"There's serious addiction is in every community.

"Duncan won't ever become like the downtown eastside because
(addicts) leave their community and go to bigger centres where they
can be anonymous.

"Vancouver's an easy place to be an addict."

Moroz agrees.

"It's easy to write them off if you've never seen any of these
people," he says. "One guy named Sebastian speaks four languages and
had a soccer scholarship but now he's a morphine addict.

"He just didn't know how to get out."

Moroz called the observations around Harbour Lights Treatment Centre,
a detox facility, Pigeon Park, and shooter's alley "the school of
life" contrasted by rich yuppies and homeless addicts.

"There's an overwhelming tragedy playing itself out there," he said.

Androsoff says it opened her eyes.

"People have to realize this can happen to them. We look at the
homeless through a TV screen that you can turn off but you can't turn
off their lives once you see them."