MoxVib

When WTTG-TV announced its "Say No to Drugs" poster contest in December, Brenda Taylor sat down with a set of color markers, determined to teach her 12-year-old daughter about the drugs that infested their Landover neighborhood. The graphic poster that Taylor helped her daughter Malinda Wade make did not win the television contest and baffled some of the judges. But it provides a poignant glimpse of a family fighting to maintain an ordinary life by fleeing a District neighborhood that had become riddled with drugs, only to find their new home suffering the same horrors. The poster contest, which ended Feb. 28, asked children between the ages of 8 and 13 to create posters that illustrated why children should keep away from drugs. The six winning posters, selected from almost 1,000 entries, were created by children from suburban Maryland and Virginia who said they had never had contact with illegal drugs. The posters that won the contest's two $1,000 grand prizes, designed by Jordan Young, 11, of Takoma Park and Gerald Gibson II, 8, of Fort Meade, pictured a child riding a skateboard and a scene from the movie "Ghostbusters." The four finalists were Jonathan Kaelin, 9, of Germantown; Jessica Sugg, 10, of Bowie; Shalleen Lush, 12, of Manassas, and Elena Jakubiak, 13, of Potomac. But Malinda's poster was different. Instead of cartoon characters, it had three pills taped to it, including a nonprescription amphetamine that was labeled in a child's handwriting, "Biphetamine 20, street name -- Black Beauty." A caption beneath a plastic bag of oregano explained that $100 worth of "Love Boat or P.C.P." could be diluted and sold on the streets for $300 to $350. Taylor, 35, said she helped her daughter make the poster to educate her about the specific horrors of drug addiction. It was based, she said, on the experiences of her neighbors and friends. "You can say a lot of big words that people don't understand, but some kids don't even know what the drugs look like," Taylor said. "I'm not dumb to the streets. When we're riding around, I show Malinda kids her own age who are on drugs. I tell her, 'When you see a person with holes in his hands, you know he's on drugs.' " But Taylor also said the poster was an expression of her anger and frustration at the environment that her daughter has to grow up in. "Making the poster taught me a lot," Malinda said. Children should learn not to use "the drugs on the poster. Even things like medicine can get you addicted." She said the poster contest helped to "get children involved. Everybody can help" fight the drug problem. In November, Taylor and her daughter moved from an apartment on Foot Street NE to their current home on Dodge Park Road in Landover. They moved because their old neighborhood had become an "open drug market," Taylor said. But when they got to Landover, she said, they "ran right back into the drug scene." Taylor said that an apartment on Foot Street was turned into a crack house. In the year before they moved, she said, her apartment was broken into seven times by addicts who crawled through the windows looking for money to buy drugs. Taylor said she sought help from the police and from the mayor's office, but the situation in her neighborhood did not change, so she moved to Prince George's County. When she learned of the poster contest, she said, she felt compelled to explain her frustrations to others. In the top left corner of her poster, above and to the left of a "shoot-up works" made from a bent piece of wire and a mascara bottle, Taylor's daughter copied a poem from her mother: We the children are carrying guns now, We're even bringing them to school. Getting high off "Loveboat" and "Crack," Not learning a thing and breaking every rule. We babies are having babies and it's a doggone shame, Just a moment of pleasure . . . . Don't know the father's name of which it came. We now got a baby and a habit just as well, Strung out on that "Cocaine Pipe," Now we're really catching hell. Little baby's hungry, hasn't got food to eat, Mama's out getting high somewhere in the street. Not concerned about our baby, just thinking of getting high, Baby's at home wet and hungry and soon the baby will die. This poem is for we the children Because every word of it is true, If by chance you think it's a joke, It might just happen to you. Life can be very beautiful, But sad when it's filled with sorrow. Because we the children of today Don't live past tomorrow.

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