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Heroes of Everyday Life 2014 No. 17 - Drug education at school

He has been away from drugs for eleven years: Klaus Gross
Photo: Stephanie Lehmann

Ex-junkie educates students about drugs

In the fight against addiction: ex-junkie Klaus Gross (45) warns in schools of the dangers of hashish & Co. He is one of our heroes of everyday life 2014.

The number shocked: More than 1000 women and men died in 2013 the drug death. Tens of thousands more are addicted to drugs.

Klaus Gross (45) from Berlin was one of them. After 20 years of addiction career, three jail sentences and two delusions, he is finally clean today. Instead of taking drugs, the Berliner is now fighting for young people not even to start with the "devil stuff".

Twice a week he visits schools to warn the children there. "Teenagers find drugs cool, " he knows. "But when I tell them how they screwed up my life, they realize very quickly that they are anything but that. My story is the best deterrent! "

He manages to open the students

And it goes like this: Berlin, 1983. Klaus Gross is 15 when he smokes cannabis for the first time. Not three years later, he tried "pretty much everything else" about drugs: speed, LSD, cocaine, amphetamines. At the age of 18, he takes heroin for the first time - and does not let go of it. "I've always needed more for the kick, spent more and more money on it, " he recalls.

At some point, his addiction is so great that even his merit as a gas and water installer is no longer sufficient to procure sufficient quantities of the drug. "So I dropped my job and started trading heroin myself. Later, I also committed apartment burglaries. "

He is arrested three times by the police. With therapies Klaus tries to get away from the drugs. But the addiction keeps catching up with him. Until the day of his last arrest. "Since May 9, 2003, I have not used drugs, " he explains proudly.
and smiles in the round.

The group of students around him listened intently to him. None of them wants to go through all this. His goal is reached! For the police, Klaus Gross, who works full-time in a homeless shelter, is a real stroke of luck. For the past six years, she has been working with the network "We can not be stunned" to fight drug trafficking in the capital. The Approach: Former addicts report on the drug hell while policemen clarify the law.

"Klaus Gross has been involved since the beginning, " says Peter Jerke (47), prevention officer for the Berlin police. "With his loose manner, he manages to get the students to open up to him. He is my most valuable, most reliable partner! "In the meantime, the police have even assigned him the management of the network. And best of all: "We can hardly save ourselves from inquiries!" Says Klaus Große.

Text: Marc Lechtenfeld

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