SCARED STRAIGHT IN BADEN

CLEAN Invites Reformed Hardcore Drug User To Talk To
Students

A Toronto man visited Wilmot last week to warn local youth about the
dangers of drugs.

Rick Osbourne toured schools on an invitation from a local drug
awareness group.

Community Link Empowered Against Narcotics (CLEAN) invited Osbourne to
speak.

Osbourne said he tours schools to prevent young kids from falling into
a life like his.

"I don't want any young people getting played like I got played," he
said. In Grade 9, his life fell apart.

Osbourne met a friend named Billy, whom he idolized for his cool
clothes and sports car.

"If someone would have told me he was a junkie, I would have thought
he collected junk," he said, speaking to the naive teen he once was.

During and after school car ride with Billy, Osbourne was taken to
another man's house, where he watched them mix meth.

The two then turned on Osbourne, forcing him to inject
meth.

He overdosed and the next few days were a blur.

"When I came too, I felt ten feet tall."

High for three days, he walked around town in a daze. On the streets,
he found more drugs.

"And that quickly, I was a heroin addict," he said.

Osbourne said his family life quickly fell apart, and after some time
on the streets in Niagara Falls, he moved to Miama where it was warmer
and he found a job cleaning the beach.

There, he met another man very similar to Billy.

"We'd usually smoke dope before we got to work," he
said.

One time the two were smoking, when suddenly the man turned on him,
and began stabbing him. Osbourne said he only escaped because the car
was a convertible.

Waking up in the intensive care unit, he was interviewed by
detectives. Osbourne refused to snitch on his attacker.

He was deported back to Canada, where he found himself mixed up in a
biker gang.

His life of crime ended when he was arrested and sent to jail. He
spent 16 years in a federal prison.

Dreaming of the day he could get his own apartment, a girlfriend and a
job, Osbourne was granted parole.

"Three days out, I was probably worse off then ever before," he
said.

Falling back into a life of drugs, he was back in jail after three
weeks.

It was when he returned to prison that Osbourne made his first real
attempt to clean up his life.

Refusing drugs from the other inmates, he ended up making the wrong
enemies.

He managed to get himself sent to a drug treatment program to avoid a
sure death in the penitentiary from drug pushers who wanted him dead.

Osbourne then met a professor from Queen's University who decided to
help him turn his life around through education.

Osbourne earned his high school diploma, and went on to become the
17th person to earn a university degree while behind bars.

He was allowed to leave prison to attend his graduation.

In total, Osbourne was behind bars from March of 1978 to May of
2003.

Unemployable because of his record, Osbourne now travels to schools to
warn youth of the dangers of drugs, and also operates a custom car and
motorcycle shop in the GTA.

Following the story of his life, he took questions from the
students.

Those questions ranged from what he does with his life now, to what
life in prison was like.

To learn more about Osbourne, visit www.truthforteens.com .