'I DON'T BELIEVE IN SCARE TACTICS'

One Thousand Greater Sudbury Teens Get Graphic Lesson On Dangers Of
Drugs And Driving

Smart Youth Power Assembly

* The Sudbury and District Health Unit sponsored the Smart Youth
Power Assembly;

* Public health nurse Nathalie Thistle said if kids take away the
idea of making smart decisions when it comes to drugs and alcohol, and
if better understand the risks involved in high risk behaviour, the
presentation will have fulfilled its purpose;

* Drug and alcohol use among northern youth, Thistle said, is higher
than the provincial average.

If verbal warnings about the dangers of doing drugs or booze and then
getting behind the wheel of a car aren't sinking into thick, teenaged
skulls, real images of charred bodies and blood-spattered wrecks just
might.

If a kid thinks doing crystal meth might be a fun thing to do, maybe
they need to meet one of the addicts whose body literally rots from
the drug, and who, when desperate enough, will pick and eat their own
scabs to get a taste of the residual meth amphetamine that builds up
in their wounds.

Norbert Georget told more than 1,000 Greater Sudbury students Tuesday
he didn't come to town to spoil their fun.

But those who think having fun means driving while hammered or stoned,
or experimenting with drugs that destroy your body and soul, should
expect to have something unthinkable happen to them.

Georget, a former advanced EMT Paramedic, saw so much senseless death
on the job that he started The Smart Youth Power Assembly more than 20
years ago to warn kids about mixing driving and substances.

He does his stark, emotionally wrenching presentations full-time now,
travelling across the country with Power Point images that drop jaws
and turn stomachs. They are the kinds of things paramedics and cops
see every day in this country, he told students who gathered at
Steelworkers Hall.

"I don't believe in scare tactics," Georget told the youth. "This is
real."

With that, he showed real images of bodies burned beyond recognition
in crashes involving drugs and alcohol. Students entered the hall with
typical impudence and loudness, but the images silenced them.

Georget said he would do anything to prevent young people from
endangering their lives with drugs. He told of a presentation he made
in a Manitoba school, where one student laughed at the horrendous
images and made sarcastic comments about them throughout the
presentation.

Three weeks later, the student was dead, Georget said -- killed behind
the wheel during a drug-and-alcohol binge.

"Every five hours, on average, a mother and father is told their child
is dead from a stupid drinking and driving accident," he said,
flashing a dozen or so pictures of dead young people on the screen.

Anyone who thinks marijuana is a harmless drug that doesn't impair
your judgement needs to seriously rethink their value system, he said.
About 18 per cent of fatal vehicle accidents are drug related and pot
is the No. 1 drug on the list of culprits.

Nick Pitt, 16, had the unenviable distinction of being called to the
stage during Georget's infamous body bag demonstration. As a
paramedic, he said, he went to the scene of an accident where a boy he
knew from one of his presentations was dead in a ditch.

He called Pitt to the stage and the young man helped him unfold and
hold up a black body bag, the same one used to cover the dead boy's
body. He urged the students not to make a choice that would land them
in one of these bags and behind a chrome locker door in the local morgue.

"It was definitely eye-opening," Pitt said. "I think it's changed the
way I think. I'm more open to how fragile we are, and to how our
choices could end our lives."

Kelsey Cutinello, Samantha McLelland and Samantha Desjardins, all 16,
entered the presentation thinking they would hear the same kinds of
messages they've heard many times before. They were shaken by
Georget's presentation.

The girls said the behaviour Georget described -- kids doing drugs or
binge drinking and then driving, or riding with drunk drivers --
happens all the time in Greater Sudbury.

"You hear about that sort of thing happening in big cities like
Toronto," said Cutinello. "But we have exactly the same things going
on right here, all the time."

Teens "think it's cool" to drink, and feel it's what they have to do
to fit in," said McLelland.

Georget tried to drive home the message that "it's OK not to drink ...
it's OK not to do drugs."