WRITER HAS IDEA THAT MIGHT HELP YOUNGSTERS

Kids need drugs.

That is what one woman believes.

And I agree.

Calm down. Hang up the phone. Put down the pen. Turn off the computer.
Before you call, write or e-mail your outrage, hear us out.

She means the constructive kind of drugs. Read on.

I noticed her comment as I glanced at Page 1 of the Clovis News Journal.
Her statement got my attention.

I wish I had said it. I should have thought of it because my parents had
the same child-rearing philosophy.

A story written by CNJ Staff Writer Darrell Todd Maurina detailed the July
12 statewide meeting in Clovis of the New Mexico Association of Colored
Women's Clubs. The story said the organization is dedicated to encouraging
cooperation and fellowship among black women.

Evelyn Rising, an academic adviser at Texas Tech, was the headline speaker
for the group's 65th annual state convention.

She aimed comments toward a black audience, but the wisdom applies to everyone.

Here is what Maurina wrote.

"Our children need drugs," Rising said ... but not the kind many are taking.

"I was drug to church Sunday morning, I was drug to church Sunday night, I
was drug to church Wednesday night, to Sunday school, to Vacation Bible
School, and to the woodshed when I needed it," she said. "If more children
had that drug problem, we'd be in a lot better world."

Simplistic? Yes.

Effective? Yes again, although I have no statistics to prove it.

Most of the successful and reputable people I know had a drug problem as
children. And I saw it work in my life.

My parents reared seven kids.

Mother drug me to church every time the doors opened. At least, so it
seemed. She drug me to school. She drug me to the kitchen every night for a
nutritious, homemade supper.

She also drug me to the woodshed - not often, but often enough that I
tailored my behavior to avoid the woodshed.

And Daddy drug me, too. He drug me to baseball games. He drug me to fishing
holes. He drug me to the corner store for a cold Pepsi. And he drug me to
the back yard for touch football games with the family.

They had little money. But they gave their time. Memories of my drug-filled
childhood are worth more than all the money in Amarillo National Bank.

Their pro-drug policy must have worked for the Packard kids. None of us
ever spent much time in jail. And only one grew up to be a newspaperman.

Yes, I realize the world has changed.

Countless children and young people have no mother, no father, no one at
all to give them drugs. Kids with no one to drug them often face only a
future of violence, crime and chemical abuse.

As Rising said in the article, "This is a different world from what we had
growing up. Yesterday I could run and play in the streets because my mother
didn't have to worry about me getting run over or being a victim of a
drive-by shooting. We didn't have a lot growing up in material things, but
we didn't know it because we had an abundance of love."

I was lucky. I got an overdose of drugs. And I got an overdose of love.

My parents were patient. It took a few years, but eventually I became a
semi-respectable member of society - even though I grew up to be a
newspaperman.

The prescription works.

Kids need drugs.