PARENTS, DON'T ACCEPT DRUGS

AFTER reading Lily and Megan's story (Shot of life helps ease tragic legacy
of heroin, 2/3) I found the need to write this letter.

In the past I would have breezed over this report and perhaps made the
comment that these problems were the result of an unhealthy upbringing. How
wrong I would have been. As many reports in The West Australian have
attested, drugs are a scourge, touching families of all backgrounds and
showing no discrimination.

My family has found itself thrown head-on into the beginning of an ordeal
that could find my daughter in a life similar to Megan's.

Our tale is a familiar one of a loving, bright, intelligent girl, brought
up in a happy family environment. But with the burden of a society gone mad
and not finding the answers required to make sense of it, her parents are
of no use to her. They have no answers. She turns to different company and
drugs in the search for the answers.

As parents, what are we to do? We are frightened. All of the human emotions
have been broached. All of society's avenues approached. But we find
society is taking the widest path, the path best illuminated, the easy way,
the path that, unfortunately, is most travelled.

We must all be tolerant of each other. But, as in most things, we human
beings seem to be incapable of finding that middle ground.

It would be so easy for my family to accept my daughter as the person she
is today and follow that wide road and avoid the conflict we are facing,
but where will our girl be tomorrow? Unconditional love means we love her
no matter what she does, but it does not mean we tolerate behaviour we know
is wrong.

We grieve as though our girl was lost to us for ever. But we still choose
the narrow path. As much as it hurts us now, we must hope she will see what
is right. I implore all parents to take the narrow path, show love for your
children and drag them kicking and screaming to the high moral ground. Do
not accept drugs into your or your child's life.