Drugs, dealing and overdoses
One students story of addiction
Travis Lowry
Issue date: 3/30/05 Section: Features
"I have a really awesome family and my parents are even foster parents to help other kids," said Kyle about his extremely close-knit and happy family life. "All the way through elementary school and high school I was kind of like a mama's boy. All the way up to grade 10, I used to wear X's on my hands, meaning I was straight edge. I couldn't stand people that partied, did drugs, alcohol, anything like that. I wanted nothing to do with any of those kinds of people. I didn't party, didn't do anything."
However, Kyle's quiet life was about to change dramatically forever, for the worse.
He met a girl who transferred to his school at the beginning of the second term of grade 11 who took him to his first rave in Toronto. Though he had experimented just once before on a class trip to the zoo, Kyle became a regular user of ecstasy, or E, while attending these raves, going to Toronto to party every weekend with his girlfriend during the summer of that year.
"Honestly, the first time I ever went to a rave, it was so much fun that I thought, 'I want to do this for the rest of my life,'" said Kyle about his introduction to his regular drug use while frequenting the Toronto rave scene.
"You couldn't go to a rave [and not do drugs]. We did E, and it was such an awesome experience, but the problem was it was too much fun."
His drug use started to filter into his life in Woodstock, and Kyle started do E more and more frequently. He started making drug contacts at raves and ended up working for organized crime affiliated drug dealers.
"They basically promised me unlimited drugs just as long as I could come up with the money for bringing the pills back from Toronto and selling in Woodstock," he said about the seemingly win-win situation.
"Because they always had good pills, I ended up quickly making a huge name for myself [in Woodstock] that they started spotting me stuff. Instead of me having to come up with the cash, they would give me 400 pills and I'd have to get rid of them and then give them the money."
However, Kyle's quiet life was about to change dramatically forever, for the worse.
He met a girl who transferred to his school at the beginning of the second term of grade 11 who took him to his first rave in Toronto. Though he had experimented just once before on a class trip to the zoo, Kyle became a regular user of ecstasy, or E, while attending these raves, going to Toronto to party every weekend with his girlfriend during the summer of that year.
"Honestly, the first time I ever went to a rave, it was so much fun that I thought, 'I want to do this for the rest of my life,'" said Kyle about his introduction to his regular drug use while frequenting the Toronto rave scene.
"You couldn't go to a rave [and not do drugs]. We did E, and it was such an awesome experience, but the problem was it was too much fun."
His drug use started to filter into his life in Woodstock, and Kyle started do E more and more frequently. He started making drug contacts at raves and ended up working for organized crime affiliated drug dealers.
"They basically promised me unlimited drugs just as long as I could come up with the money for bringing the pills back from Toronto and selling in Woodstock," he said about the seemingly win-win situation.
"Because they always had good pills, I ended up quickly making a huge name for myself [in Woodstock] that they started spotting me stuff. Instead of me having to come up with the cash, they would give me 400 pills and I'd have to get rid of them and then give them the money."
