'END OF THE LINE': STUDENTS GET A GRAPHIC VIEW OF WHERE DRUG USE TAKES YOU

Seeing himself sprawled out and writhing on a Vancouver street,
screaming incoherently at anyone who happened to pass him by, still
gets Randy Miller choked up.

Miller knows he is lucky to be alive.

He realizes having to watch over and over again how his drug addiction
destroyed the person he could have been is a small price to pay if it
saves one young person's life.

And his message in assisting with a longtime, groundbreaking project
initiated by Vancouver law enforcement to educate youth on the
consequences of becoming involved with drugs is clear.

"Make the right choices. Everybody comes up to a time in their life
when they have to make a choice and hopefully they make the right
choice. Be educated so you better know what choices are the right
ones," Miller - a recovering addict who has emerged from Vancouver's
infamous east side downtown drug community - said following his
presentation to Peace Wapiti Academy students Thursday.

The presentation to raise awareness of the consequences of drug use
was one of four put on during the past couple of days in the region by
Vancouver police Sgt. Toby Hinton, P.C. Mark Steinkampf and Miller
during National Addictions Awareness Week.

They also held an open presentation in Grande Prairie Wednesday night,
visited I.V. Macklin school Thursday afternoon and Beaverlodge in the
evening.

The presentation initially focused on the officers relating their more
than 30 years of combined experience of dealing with Vancouver's
sordid drug trade. It used graphic clips of the award-winning
documentary "Through a Blue Lens," in which officers in the late 1980s
captured the reality of the effects of drug addiction in their city.

The officers told the more than 400 students in attendance how 90 per
cent of the crime in Vancouver is related to the drug trade, how more
than 3.5 million needles used for injecting drugs were exchanged in
2004 and how 95 per cent of the 4,000 hard-core drug addicts residing
in the city's downtown east side have contracted a strain of hepatitis.

They played clips from the documentary depicting how a heroin addict
had scratched a hole in her arm nearly to the bone when she was high
because she thought bugs were crawling on her.

They showed clips of Miller talking about having to take cocaine and
heroin at the same time to reach the high he had become accustomed to
and him rolling around on the ground in a drug-induced psychosis.

'CHOKED UP'

"I still get choked up when I see myself like that ... look what I did
to myself, when I could have done things with my life other than
become a drug addict," said Miller, who as a young teenager was an
exceptional hockey player who was scouted to play professionally.

"You feel shame but I am happy to be able to share my story ... and
hopefully make at least one kid make the right choice," he said.

"If they aren't educated, they will go out and try something. Now that
they are educated they might know there are consequences."

Miller has talked to more than 50,000 kids across the country about
his plight in the past four years alone.

Now working as a longshoreman on the coast, he said people in smaller
communities should not think they are immune to the problems
associated with hard-core drug use.

"It happens to every city in Canada ... I don't care where it is ...
every one has a problem of this nature," he said.

After he spoke, the majority of students sought him out to shake his
hand, say a word of thanks or even to give him a hug.

Watching such a connection made between the students and the person
who escaped the finality drug addiction can have brought a smile to
Hinton's face.

"There is some benefit to (illustrating) the end of the line ... (what
we see) in our work. That's why we are motivated to come do these
presentations and talks," said Hinton.

"We have the most disturbing and graphic stories to tell, but those
particular issues affect every community. It's not a downtown east
side (Vancouver) problem. In any community there are these drug
problems. It's just that we are swimming in it.

"We work in it every day and we are surrounded by thousands of hard
core drug addicts and from that misery we want to try to take
something that might be useful to younger people in their
decision-making process," said Hinton, noting the fact that Miller is
still around to talk about what he has endured is the exception to the
rule.

"The loss of human potential is absolutely staggering. An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure," he said.

"The message is very clear: There are consequences to the choices
involving drug use. For some people, they may not see it coming. We
just want to show them what the end of the line is like.

"There is a simple solution to drug abuse and it doesn't lie with us,
it lies with younger kids. Life will still be tough ... but it won't
be near the nightmare it would be if you end up with a drug problem,"
said Hinton.