Speaker talks about dangers of drugs

Community members and students visited Havre Middle School Thursday night to hear about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.

The speech Marlando Sparks gave Thursday was entitled "The Power of One," and the main topic was about how one person can alter the life of a teenager by challenging and supporting them, Sparks said.

Sparks began his talk with a video that showed many photos of people using hard drugs and the side effects of doing so, interlaced with short videos and clips from popular culture that use drug references in them, such as a movie starring Wiz Khalifa and Snoop Dogg and the song, "Because I Got High" by Afroman.

Sparks talked of smoking marijuana being made glamourous through such references in pop culture and how this is creating a false image of the drug to youth.

Marijuana is not as safe as it seems, Sparks said. He said that decades ago, the amount of THC, the chemical that gets the user "high," was around 4 to 7 percent.

"Now, it can get up to 30 percent," Sparks said.

This is due to drug dealers trying to make their product better than everyone else's, according to Sparks.

In addition to this danger, there is also the problem of marijuana producers lacing their product with other chemicals or drugs in order to keep or increase their clientele. He gave an example of a kid who smoked marijuana laced with heroin and was instantly addicted to the latter drug.

"This is the question I ask each kid: How do you know it was laced?" Sparks said, and added, "You don't know. You know when you smoke it."

Sparks admitted there are some benefits of marijuana, mostly for medical treatment, but "the cons far outweigh the pros."

"Marijuana is not a stress reliever," Sparks said. "It just covers up your issues."

Sparks told his story about how he was introduced into selling drugs by his father and stories of family members abandoned by their mothers and loved ones due to drugs.

He also covered alcohol, citing that alcohol kills more youths than all other drugs combined.

"The majority of kids binge drink - five or more drinks," Sparks said. "It's one of the most easiest things to get."

Sparks' regular employment is working with kids one-on-one at a high school in his hometown in Washington. There, he helps students through their problems with substance abuse and dependencies as a "middle-man," to help the youth before they have to get treatment.

The kids he sees think that someone or themselves being high is humorous and entertaining, but they get a hard awakening when they come see him, Sparks said.

"I slap them with reality ..." he said. "You think it's awesome, but it affects lives."

He ended the speech with an allegory of a hound dog sitting on a tack - howling in pain, but not in enough to move himself from the tack.

"The pain is not enough for the kid (on drugs) to move," Sparks said. "We have to help them."

Sparks will speak at Havre Middle School and Havre High School today in assemblies closed to public. This speech is entitled "Why Not U?" and the topic will be about what students can do to break the cycle of drug abuse and rise up to be successful and drug-free.