Students at CedarBridge got a taste of life in Westgate when an inmate visited the school as part of an anti-crime and drugs workshop yesterday.

The workshops, which have been taking place throughout the week, were organised by CedarBridge's student government as a follow up to last year's drug prevention workshops at the school.

The student government invited representatives from CADA, Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, to speak to their classmates and bring their drug prevention programme to the school.

The speaker at yesterday's workshop was inmate Marvin (Duke) Woolridge who was back by popular demand after talking to students earlier in the week.

"He had a big effect on the students on Tuesday,'' said student government president Jonakie Bean. "He can really help a lot of children who are going down the wrong road.'' Woolridge, who has been at Westgate since 1994, used his own experiences to discourage the students from using drugs and ending up in jail.

"In life you have choices,'' he told the students. "But you only get two things out of it -- reap the benefits or suffer the consequences.'' He took the students through a typical day at Westgate with one of their classmates handcuffed to him. And he spoke frankly on his experiences with hard drugs in the hope of stopping others from going down the same road.

"There ain't no benefits to heroin, there ain't no benefits to cocaine,'' he told his captive audience. "Don't do it. You'll steal from your mama, your daddy, even your grandmama in a wheelchair.

"You can make a million dollars in the drug game. You can have your house, your car, your boat but you make one mistake and its all gone. There ain't no nice things in jail.'' Woolridge stressed the hardships of being incarcerated.

"You lose your girlfriend. You only get three one-hour visits a month. Why your girl gonna stay with you? You can't be doing anything for her.''