MARIJUANA NOT HARMFUL? NOT TRUE

Alvin Powell, 51, is a 6-foot-5, 300-pound Montreal drugabuse
counsellor. He is a former offensive lineman with the Seattle Seahawks
and the Miami Dolphins whose National Football League career was cut
short by drug addiction. He came to Montreal in 1992 intending to kill
himself. But he turned his life around and today works as a
motivational speaker for the non-profit Saving Station Foundation of
Dorval. Over the past 11 years, tens of thousands of Montreal
elementary and high-school students in English-language schools have
seen him speak in schools against drug abuse. He talks to Gazette
communities editor David Johnston about marijuana consumption among
Montreal youth.

Gazette: The 2007 World Drug Report of the United Nations Commission on
Narcotic Drugs found Canada ranked No. 1 among the industrialized world for
marijuana consumption. Why is pot use so high in this country?

Alvin Powell: First of all, because pot is very easy to get in Canada,
especially around Montreal. You have a lot of growing going on and not a lot
of law enforcement. Many farmers are growing pot on behalf of major dealers.
Pot is valuable, from a moneymaking point of view. But it's not just that
pot is easy to get. There is also something in the culture here that says,
"You know, marijuana is just a soft drug; it's not harmful at all." But it's
not true. The marijuana being grown here is so potent now that I can't see
how people can keep calling it a soft drug.

How did you go from playing in the National Football League to
becoming a drug counsellor in Montreal?

I had a career in the NFL that slipped away from me because of drugs.
In Seattle, I wasn't a starter, and I thought that wasn't fair. I
thought, "Oh, poor me," and I turned to drugs. First pot, then
cocaine. I got a second chance in Miami with the Dolphins, but I had a
relapse in Miami and left the team.

Then I caught on with the London Monarchs of the World League of
American Football, and one day in 1991, we came to Montreal to play
the Montreal Machine. I had another relapse and I got into a fight
with Shayne Corson of the Montreal Canadiens in a bar on Crescent St.
called Thursdays.

I was arrested and released on $2,500 bail. I went back to North
Miami, Fla., where I was living, and my using got worse. When I came
back to Montreal for my court case, I got a slap on the wrist, and
went out and bought some heroin in Montreal's East End. My intention
was to put an end to my life here. But while in Montreal, I was in
this crack house, and I was saved by a group called Africans Against
Drugs. I started doing some speaking engagements.

And then one day Rabbi Ronnie Fine contacted me. He had heard about me
through the son of Sam Elkas, a former member of the Quebec National
Assembly, who had seen me speak at Trevor Williams's basketball camp.
That's how it all started.

What are you seeing with drugs and youth in Montreal
today?

Drugs come into the lives of our youth at a stage when they are the
most susceptible to anything. Puberty is a huge time of confusion for
teenagers. You're going from sixth grade to seventh grade, your body
is changing, your voice is changing. All of a sudden boys and girls
are developing and looking at each other differently and a lot of
changes are happening and everybody is looking to fit in. It's stressful.

It's particularly stressful if you don't like your body or you don't
have a strong sense of belonging. Drugs come in and say, "Hey, no
matter what the situation is, I guarantee you that I can make you feel
good." That is an awfully powerful seduction. Kids don't just get to
like drugs; they get to love drugs. Because drugs deliver exactly what
they say they are going to deliver.

So what's the challenge for a drug counsellor like
you?

Our responsibility to children as parents and administrators is to
prepare them for the world. We know that facing obstacles, and getting
through obstacles, is what builds character and selfesteem. And we
understand that at every stage of development, the obstacles become
harder. That never stops. That constant bombardment of challenges
never stops in our development as human beings. And so what can happen
is that the child can choose to retract, to sit in a state of bliss
and not seek extra help in math, or extra help in French class. And so
the challenge is to help kids see things from this point of view.

What do you think of the growing political and judicial momentum in
Canada toward pot decriminalization, which some see as a stepping
stone to legalization?

You have to ask yourself this question: Who are the biggest users of
pot? Young people. (Editor's note: the 2010 UN World Drug Report said
that the prevalence of use in Canada among people aged 15 to 24 is
four times higher than among those aged 25 and over.)

To me, to decriminalize pot would be to encourage even more using
among young people than we are seeing now. I can see situations in the
home where kids would be using and parents opposed and the kids say,
"Well, I don't care what you say, the government says it's OK."
Decriminalization would create a lot of problems in a lot of
households across the country.

For more information about Saving Station Foundation:
savingstationfoundation. com.

djohnston@ montrealgazette.com

CANADIAN POT LAWS ARE UP IN THE AIR

THE ISSUE: The legal status of marijuana. On April 11, an Ontario
Superior Court judge struck down parts of Canada's marijuana laws. The
case involves a marijuana user who couldn't find a doctor who agreed
with him that he needed marijuana for medical purposes. The court
ruled in favour of the user, a well-known pot activist, and ordered
the federal government to rewrite its marijuana laws while clearing
the way for the activist to grow his own pot. The government is
appealing. Meanwhile, hundreds of people marched through downtown
Montreal last Saturday in favour of pot legalization as part of the
annual Global Marijuana March in 200 cities.

THE CONTEXT: Canadians smoke a lot of pot. The United Nations
Commission on Narcotic Drugs reported in 2007 that Canada ranked No. 1
among industrialized nations for marijuana consumption. Surveys show
consumption is highest in Quebec. A Health Canada study in 2002 found
that 32 per cent of Quebec students in Grades 7 to 9 had used
marijuana, compared with 18 per cent in British Columbia (second place
among the provinces) and 11 per cent in Ontario (last place). (Since
2007, consumption rates have fallen somewhat across Canada; last year
the Czech Republic ranked No. 1 for consumption in the developed
world.) In Quebec, marijuana has surpassed alcohol as the substance
for which teenagers are most likely to seek treatment in publicly
funded rehab facilities, according to Centre Dollard-Cormier,
Montreal's largest publicly funded drug-rehabilitation centre.