The graduation speech you'll never hear

Mark McLaughlin gave this speech last month at the Somerville Youth Peace Conference, where more than 400 young people devised priorities for youth organizations to secure jobs and more programs for teens and forge relationships with adults. McLaughlin, 20, works as a bicycle courier in Boston, and with his brothers Matt and Danny formed Save Our Somerville, a neighborhood group aimed at "giving a voice to the voiceless."

"There have been dramatic changes in Somerville in the past few years, with gentrification and immigration," said McLaughlin. "People always talk about crime and gangs, but the biggest problem in our city is drugs.

In my short life I've seen more drugs, death and despair then I would ever care to see. I recall as young as 13, people around me beginning to experiment with drugs and alcohol. By the time I was in high school they were taking pills like ecstasy and various pain-killers. At 16, I experienced my first loss of a friend to drug abuse.

This was my awakening. Before this point I never looked at what was happening as a problem. It was just something that kids did everywhere. I never thought it would claim a life. When my friend died I thought my peers would also be awakened. I thought that in his loss other lives would be saved. Sadly, I was wrong. After his death, there was a long and painful series of overdoes and suicides that followed.

I entered high school in 2001 and by 2005 I had lost 16 friends, acquaintances or classmates. And those were just the deaths. Other friends ended up getting involved with violence and crime. Many people I knew were sent to prison for bank and pharmacy robberies, purse snatching, drug possession and dealing. As the addictions grew and pharmacies no longer carried OxyContin, the street price became very expensive. Many turned to crime to get the money they needed to support their habit. Others found a more potent high for a cheaper price in heroin.

This problem has no regard for the race or class of its victims. I've witnessed good kids from good families succumb to their vices. Families I've known for as long as I can remember torn apart by a problem no one wants to acknowledge. After all, "it could never happen in my home. Not to my child." Now that the stream of overdoses seems to have subsided, people want to believe that the worst is over. But I had a friend O.D. last week. This is not over.

My friend did not die. But losing someone to drugs is not always a loss of life. It is also the loss of innocence. It's seeing young vibrant faces grow pale and thin. It's seeing the arms that once held baseball bats and hockey sticks filled with track marks. The math that was once used in the classroom is now used for measuring and bagging out drugs.

I've spent a lot of my time wondering what causes teens to throw their lives away to drugs. It seems to start around the time when young kids approach high school and begin to enter the adult world. Before that time we are told that we can do anything we set our minds to. Then society starts to put limits on our once limitless possibilities. We are told that "you can't do this because you're not smart enough, not fast enough. Maybe you should settle for less."

The end results of these messages are clear to me when I talk to some of my friends who are struggling with drugs. Every time I suggest they get clean, and go to school or get a job, they ask me "Why? Why should I? To get a job I hate and be miserable for the rest of my life?" What they are really asking me is "Why am I living?" They are expressing a hopelessness that came long before the drugs. I know, because I have, at times, lived with the same feelings of hopelessness.

When I attended Somerville High School I witnessed kids who had a lack of dreams remain uninspired and unsure of their future. I witnessed kids with dreams told that they weren't college material and to go into the trade program regardless of their own interests. I also witnessed a police officer there to protect us, supervise us and supposedly inspire us, fired from the force (and later reinstated) for abusing OxyContin. I myself dropped out of SHS in my sophomore year, feeling that school was just preparing me for a job I didn't want so my time there was useless. When I left school there was no attempt to get me to stay.

At the time I'm not sure I would have listened -- but I can't help but look back and wonder if someone only had given me a reason, a glimpse of my possibilities. I began attending class in a program called Youth Build/Just a Start. Very quickly I noticed a difference in their teaching methods. They asked me something I was never asked before, "What do you want to do and how can we help you do it?"

This problem is bigger than Somerville. The school systems across the state and the country are not concerned enough with the goals that young people have for themselves. Instead of caring about the child, the schools have to pay attention to MCAS scores. Instead of communicating possibility, the schools talk about what you don't have, how you're not good enough, what you won't be able to do. We follow a system called "no child left behind" but so many of us end up being left behind, or walking out the front door because we can't see a reason to stay.

One thing that the adults of Somerville can do is to fight for an educational system that meets the needs of all of its youth. School is the access point. School could be the place where we turn this thing around. But it can't stop there. To all the adults in the community, I would like to say: Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Don't be afraid to say the hard things. In this way you will let the youth know that you believe in their capacities. Let them know that we are just as good -- even better -- than any other city in this state. I know that Somerville is tough enough to take this on.

To really fix a problem you need to understand where it starts. If you want to know what youth in Somerville need -- they need hope and a vision of a future that is full of possibility and promise. I hope that is not too much to ask.

YouthBuild helps people age 17 to 24 earn a high school diploma or GED while performing community service. Information is available at justastart.org, or 617-494-0444.