Students of II Liceum Ogólnokształcące in Bolesławiec had the opportunity to take part in a prevention meeting prepared by Stowarzyszenie Pomocy „Arka Noego”. Piotr Stępniak, Dariusz Góralczyk and Marcin Tyburczy told the high school students stories from their lives.
“Why do people smoke weed?” Góralczyk, a rapper from Świdnica, asked. “We travel all over the country, and no one says they smoke it in order to ruin their lives. We visit schools, psychiatric hospitals, prisons and juvenile detention centers. In psychiatric hospitals, we see people who are 15 years old and suffer from schizophrenia. All because they smoked skunk. Marijuana today is not what it used to be. In the past, an adult had to smoke two joints, wash them down with beer, and only then would they feel the effects. Today, four grown men can smoke one bud in a pipe and end up with such chaos in their heads that they cannot make sense of reality. They think they are smoking marijuana, while dealers add rat poison, ether, heroin and other substances to it in order to get young people—people like you—addicted as quickly as possible and take as much money from you as they can.
At the age of 13, Góralczyk was addicted to marijuana. “I believed the myth that weed is not addictive,” the man from Świdnica recalled. “My friends and I used to tell each other that we would never take any drugs. Later, all of them did. One did not get the chance, because he committed suicide at the age of 15.
Problems with the law and health problems began. One day, the rapper overdosed. He could not stay on his feet. He thought it was the end. “Then I remembered that Jesus could help me,” he said. “My mother tried everything and fought for me. People told her, ‘Throw that junkie out of the house,’ but she knelt and prayed for God to change my life. One night, she fell asleep on her knees and dreamed of Jesus. He said to her: ‘Daughter, everything will be all right.’ And it really was. I managed to make it. But many of my friends are dead.
Piotr Stępniak, a former gangster who spent more than 20 years in prison, talked about the dangers of drinking alcohol. “No one drinks alcohol in order to become an alcoholic,” he stressed. “Ninety-six percent of people in prison are there because they committed crimes under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I believe many of you will draw conclusions from this.
“Drugs are like Russian roulette, played with a pistol containing 99 bullets and one empty chamber,” he continued. “Only one person in a hundred manages to get out of it. Human life is not Russian roulette.
The meeting alternated between hip-hop songs performed by Góralczyk and Tyburczy and videos made by the Association. “This was one of the best talks in the history of this school, and I know what I am saying because I have worked here for 22 years,” said Mirosław Sakowski, principal of II LO.
“Our Association tells young people about the traps awaiting them,” Piotr Stępniak told Istotne.pl. “We talk about values such as love, peace and family. Young people are the future of our country. We love them and do not want ruthless people to profit from their naivety. We do not talk nonsense or read from cards. We tell the truth and show what life is like.
Stowarzyszenie Pomocy „Arka Noego” visited the school at the initiative of the Parents’ Council and school counselor Dariusz Kunaszko. “This organization does not consist of theoreticians who recite rules,” Kunaszko said. “These are people who have experienced all of this firsthand and now organize meetings of this kind so that we can avoid their mistakes. We recommend this prevention program to all schools.
(information: ii)