HARD LESSONS OF YOUTH

These images drop jaws and turn stomachs

There's an old saying that showing someone something is far more
valuable than merely telling them about it. Nothing conveys meaning
like watching something unfold, touching it or experiencing it in some
way.

In recent years, public health officials trying to discourage youth
from smoking have taken this message to heart by throwing the effects
of tobacco use into the open. Statistics show that smoking leads to
cancer and heart disease, but those are just numbers.

Instead, images of shrivelled lungs, tarred mouths and yellowed
fingers have been put in front of teenagers' faces. First-person
stories of loved ones unnecessarily lost to cancer are more powerful
than a bar graph or a third-person lecture.

The results show promise. While smoking persists among youth, no one
can argue it's because they don't understand the consequences. Thanks
in part to the stark honesty of the message, the percentage of daily
smokers has decreased significantly in Sudbury, from 28 per cent in
2001 to 21 per cent in 2003.

This same principle is what motivates Norbert Georget, a former
advanced EMT Paramedic who started The Smart Youth Power Assembly more
than 20 years ago to warn kids about mixing driving and substances.

Georget made a presentation this week to 1,000 Greater Sudbury
students about senseless death -- what happens when people mix alcohol
and drugs with driving. Statistics show that eventually, someone who
habitually drives while drunk or stoned will hurt and possibly kill
someone.

That's terrible, skeptics will say. But kids are invincible, they're
not statistics. Those horrible things happen to other people.

Georget is out to dispel that misconception. He does his stark,
emotionally wrenching presentations full-time now, travelling across
the country showing teenagers images of the tangled, twisted and
charred bodies of the victims of alcohol-of drug-induced car wrecks.
These images drop jaws and turn stomachs. They are the kinds of things
paramedics and cops see every day in this country, and if others saw
them they would instantly reconsider drinking and driving.

For this, Georget makes no apologies. Nor should he.

Just last weekend, two people were charged by Greater Sudbury Police
with impaired driving during a seasonal RIDE check. City police
stopped 725 vehicles, while OPP officers stopped 1,124 vehicles.
Greater Sudbury Police reported 44 people were given roadside tests
and eight people received 12-hour driving suspensions.

In the past, authorities have told us 80 per cent of highway deaths in
the Sudbury area involve impaired driving, compared to the national
average of 36 per cent. In 1999, 212 impaired drivers were arrested,
in 2000, it was 235 and in 2001 it was 313. In Sudbury, 69 per cent of
impaired driving incidents during 2001 occurred on weekends or Friday
nights. Remember, it only takes one drunk driver to cause a fatality.

Perhaps most ominously, two novice drivers who were pulled over last
weekend were charged with having a blood alcohol level above zero.
These are the drivers of tomorrow. Statistics aren't keeping them off
the road and RIDE programs catch them when it's too late.

Only the stark reality of the consequences seems to work. That's
Georget's mission, and it's a valuable one.