DRUG CONVICTION 'RESCUED' WOMAN FROM LIFE OF DESPAIR

If Diana Gardiner came face-to-face with the Grande Prairie RCMP constable
who busted her for cocaine trafficking and set her up for a three-year
stint in federal prison, she'd shake his hand.

But in June 2000 Gardiner - a mother, a grandmother, and also a hard-core
cocaine addict and trafficker - would probably have spit on him.

Earlier that year she'd spent each of her four children's birthday and
Christmas present money for a fix. For 30 years she'd been either drinking
or doing drugs, or both.

By that summer she was doing up to $1,000 worth of coke a day, dealing on
the side to keep the money - and the drugs - coming.

In early June a police crackdown collared almost 50 drug users and sellers
in the Grande Prairie area, including Gardiner.

"I thought I had a hold on my life. I thought I knew what I was doing," she
said.

A conviction on three charges of drug trafficking said different. She was
sentenced to three years while her family watched from the courtroom
gallery. "I blew a kiss and said I love you as I was led away."

Two years later Gardiner is on parole from the federal pen, living in
Grande Prairie again, and working with her former jailers to spread her
message. Tuesday night she spoke to a small gathering at a public forum put
on by Correctional Services Canada about how the counselling and programs
she received in jail turned her life around.

"I wasn't arrested, I was rescued... Jail saved my life," she said.

Gardiner confronted and quelled the personal demons of childhood trauma,
sexual abuse and abusive relationships at the root of her drug abuse.

She worked two jobs while in prison, and now edits a monthly newsletter for
female inmates.

And she says she wants to begin speaking at high schools next, to stop kids
before they fall into the same hell of drug abuse she did.

"I want the new, improved Diana to be someone people can be proud of,
especially my family."

Diana is the face of corrections that the public doesn't see enough of -
the over 85 per cent of former inmates who successfully reintegrate back
into their communities, says spokeswoman Arlene Barnes.

"One of the greatest challengers facing Correctional Services is low public
awareness... often misconceptions shape what the public knows," she said at
Tuesday's forum.

The public meeting was also a chance for corrections to promote the growing
volunteer effort in Grande Prairie. The number of federal inmates from the
area is increasing along with the population, said volunteer co-ordinator
Linda Price, but so is the number of people helping parolees rejoin their
community.

Corrections volunteers can simply pray for inmates and staff, or become
involved in support, counselling, housing and activities for prisoners on
release, she said.

"We cannot do a complete job of getting people back into their communities
without help from individuals like yourself," said Price.

"There is a tender spot in every offender and it's the community's and
CSC's job to bring that tender spot out."