SARNIA LOSING DRUG WAR

Crusader Claims Education Efforts Are Falling Short

Charlie Perkins, the newly-elected president of an international
anti-drug organization called Drug Watch, says the local war on drugs
has hit hard times.

"The drug problem among youth locally is getting worse," Perkins told
The Observer. "Ecstasy is replacing marijuana as the drug of choice
and I find that very frightening."

Ecstasy, known as the peace and love drug of the rave party culture,
comes in various forms and colours and is called everything from
Cadillac to Lollipop.

Teenagers aren't using drugs so much at school as outside of school
and at parties, Perkins said.

"I don't have any hard facts and I don't want to inflate the figures,
but parents are no longer involving themselves in providing
information. The anti-drug movement is slowly dying."

City police praised Perkins for his ongoing effort to educate
children about drug use.

And officers agree that just as many local teenagers are using drugs
while the effort to teach them about the impacts is taking a beating.

"A lot of kids do take ecstacy. It's the big word around here," said
Const. Terry Simm who heads Sarnia's youth bureau. "There's also tons
of grass and hash oil around."

The good news is that, unlike Chatham, London and Port Huron, Sarnia
does not have crack houses. However, many other drugs are readily
available.

Local schools are calling the police "constantly" with kids involved
in drug possession, Simm said. "We're swamped."

Officers spend so much time tracking down dealers and enforcing the
law, little time is left to go into the schools to educate, said Sgt.
Dave McMahan of the city's morality unit.

"Our officers still go to the schools when it's possible but no one
from our office has been for some time," he said. "We focus our
energy on the dealers."

No single area or school in Sarnia is more plagued with drugs,
McMahan added. It doesn't matter which high school you go to. "When
you talk about drugs, they're available anytime, anywhere."

Perkins said the Just Say No anti-drug program taught in elementary
schools is valuable but he is concerned teachers have less and less
time to get the message across because of the demands of the new
curriculum.

With less parental input and less anti-drug education in the schools,
efforts to teach local youth about the dangers of drug use are more
limited than they were in the 1980s and 1990s, he said.

Twenty years ago, Perkins and his late wife Louise founded a program
called Lambton Families in Action. The group worked primarily with
young people and went into local schools to discuss illegal drug use.

Today Perkins remains chairman of the board with Lambton Families in
Action but membership has dwindled to eight local volunteers.

On a broader scale, he fights the drug culture with his involvement
on Drug Watch International, a group of individuals and organizations
from 21 different countries. He was recently elected president of the
400-member group and just returned from Washington where he met with
the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"Unlike Chretien, Bush is determined to get this problem under
control," Perkins said. "Bill Clinton just stripped the anti-drug arm
of the government and Bush wants to undo what Clinton did."

He is currently on a three-week tour in the United States, meeting
numerous Drug Watch delegates and returning to Washington D.C.

Drug Watch includes a group of physicians, lawyers, law enforcement
officials and treatment specialists who advise the government on drug
policy. Perkins will be meeting with Asa Hutchinson, head of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency.

He believes that the anti-drug movement suffers from a lack of media
attention and a lack of commitment from the Canadian government.

"I've talked to our local MP (Roger Gallaway) about it and it was a
waste of time," Perkins said. "The government wants to decriminalize
drugs."

In April of 2001, the federal government introduced regulations on
the medicinal uses for marijuana and made it possible for terminally
ill patients, people with AIDS, multiple sclerosis, spinal-cord
injuries, epilepsy and other serious conditions to use the drug if it
eases their symptoms.

The government also awarded a contract to Prairie Plant Systems Inc.
of Saskatoon to provide a reliable source of affordable marijuana for
medical and research purposes. At the time, there were 210
individuals across Canada who received special exemptions from
prosecution to smoke marijuana to ease their pain.

But government officials stressed that the regulations pertain to
marijuana only and don't open the door for the decriminalization of
other illegal drugs.