EX-ADDICT BRINGS MESSAGE TO TEENS

CAMBRIDGE -- Fifteen-year-old Ben Potipcoe knows a number of teen-agers who
have tried marijuana. He figures many teens smoke it at least once.

But if his peers begin to experiment with harder drugs, like ecstasy and
LSD, or acid, Potipcoe plans to walk away.

He has a former drug dealer and addict to thank for that.

"He opened my eyes," Potipcoe said of 27-year-old Julian Madigan, who spoke
at St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge yesterday on the
dangers of drug use.

"You hear of things but you don't comprehend it until you really think
about it."

Madigan forced about 1,600 students at the Cambridge high school to think
harder about drug use yesterday. He told the crowd how, at 13 while living
in Ireland, he smoked his first cigarette and sipped his first beer. Then
he tried marijuana. Shortly after, he started going to raves where he began
popping acid. Then came ecstasy.

He became so addicted to the high from these drugs that he began trading
his own clothes for pills. Then he started stealing from his family. When
that wasn't enough, Madigan began selling drugs to pay for his own supply.

Within a year, his grades slipped, he was kicked off his swim team, watched
his track career slow to a halt and, perhaps worst of all, Madigan made his
grandmother cry.

"She would be crying and wondering where I was," said Madigan, referring to
the weekends he wouldn't come home.

"How do the events of the weekend make you neglect the most important
things in your life? Do drugs and you'll know why."

After four years, Madigan was finally able to ask for help after police
busted his home looking for drugs, and a dealer threatened his life over a
$1,500 drug debt.

He told his father, began counselling and started a strict rehab program
with his family.

In 1996, at the age of 20, he published a book called The Agony of Ecstasy.

He later moved to Calgary. Now, he travels around the world giving young
people the chance to see firsthand what drugs can do.

"If you want to play a game of Russian roulette take one of these pills
(ecstasy) because that's the game you play," he told the students.

"It's a very lethal drug."

Madigan showed the students pictures of teenagers who all died from taking
just one or half of an ecstasy pill. One girl was celebrating her junior
high school graduation, another her birthday.

One girl was photographed unconscious in a hospital bed with blood pouring
out of her mouth and nose.

"That picture will stay in my mind forever," said 16-year-old Annette
Wozniak. "I know a lot of people who are macho but they will change.
They'll pretend like it (Madigan's presentation) won't affect them, but it
will."

Erica Dell'Aquila, 17, was in tears as Madigan switched from photo to
photo, showing first a happy, healthy teenager like herself and then a
lifeless body and a grieving family.

"It hits very close to home because we see it (drug use) so often in
school," she said. "When I came in here I thought I knew everything I
needed to know. But he told me some things that I had no idea about."

St. Benedict's student council asked Madigan to speak after hearing how
powerful his message was from other schools. He spoke at Galt Collegiate
Institute last year.

"He had his own story and experienced it himself," said 17-year-old student
council member Auravelia Colomer.

Lindsey Roszell, also a member of council, said students have more respect
for a speaker who has experienced what he or she is preaching.

Madigan has spoken to students in Canada, the United States and Ireland and
figures he has helped hundreds fight their drug habits.

"I wouldn't do it otherwise," he said.

He has about 200 e-mails saved from teenagers who told him they are no
longer doing ecstasy.

His first letter, from a 13-year-old boy, is framed.

Potipcoe and several other St. Benedict students plan to keep in touch with
Madigan through e-mail, not because they need help kicking a drug habit,
but because they were so touched by his story.

"It made an impact because you know he has firsthand experience," Potipcoe
said.

"It was enough to make me never want to do harder drugs. Not after seeing
and hearing his story."