BOXING CHAMPION GETS TO KIDS BEFORE DRUGS DO

Local News - Former Canadian heavyweight boxing champion George Chuvalo lost
three sons and a wife to drugs and suicide, so he knows what he's talking
about when he brings his anti-drug message to kids.

He brought that message to the students at Elizabeth Wyn Wood alternative
school last week, and asked them simply to respect themselves as the biggest
step off the path that leads to drug use and that has led to so much tragedy
in his own life.

"When you smoke a cigarette that first time, you disrespect yourself," he
told the roughly 200 students assembled in the school's gymnasium.

"The step from smoking tobacco to smoking a joint is small," he said, and
it's another short step from there to other more dangerous drugs like
heroin.

He wants to take this message to young people because these important
decisions and many others are made at a young age.

"Ask any problem drinker when they started drinking. At 35? 40? No, it's
when they were young =85 and the same thing applies to drugs."

Chuvalo wanted to do a speaking tour with his son Steven, a plan they'd made
while Steven was in jail and recovering from a heroin addiction.

Steven died days after his release and days before his first scheduled
speaking event with his father. He was found with a syringe sticking from
his arm, dead from an overdose.

Chuvalo now tours alone, but with the support of local activists. He's
spoken at more than 300 schools as well as numerous detention centres and
parent-support groups. At Elizabeth Wyn Wood, located off Merivale Road on
Rossland Avenue, he was introduced by both former Miss Canada Lynsey Bennet,
who works with Volunteer Ottawa, and Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Gary Guzzo.

Guzzo spent 11 years as a judge, many in juvenile and family court. He said
it's important for young people to know that not only are drugs and crime
are linked, but to know how.

"Criminals don't become drug addicts, addicts become criminals," he said.

The event was actually put together by a group of Elizabeth Wyn Wood
students, with the help of Leadership Ottawa and the Ontario Crime
Commission.

"They (the students) were trying to find something that would engage
students and reach out to them," said Gerry Cuppage, the school's
co-ordinator (the alternative-system equivalent of a principal.) "It's a
very sad story that certainly high school students can relate to."

As he said this, standing in the hall outside the gym while Chuvalo spoke, a
student fled the gym in tears. He followed her to find out the problem, and
when he returned, said by way of explanation, "It just hit home too hard."