ALCOHOL IS THE REAL PROBLEM

Editor, The News:

Re: Meth Task Force Treatment 'Unfortunate' (Letters, Oct. 28).

I have to agree with school board chair Cheryl Ashlie's position that
education in the schools should not focus on one drug, like meth.

Society, in general, has a real abuse problem with alcohol and it's
still the No. 1 issue in terms of traffic accidents and fatalities,
work days lost, families destroyed and illnesses caused by overuse.
Heroin and cocaine are also much bigger problems for our country and
the countries they're produced in.

Every decade seems to bring a new drug that is supposed to be the
downfall of civilization as we know it. With each new drug, all the
media scare came to naught. And now we have the new millennium and a
new scourge. This one appears to be a pandemic, according Stepan
Vdovine, a local first-time school trustee (what lauded university of
medicine did he attend, again?) whose obvious animosity toward Mrs.
Ashlie has been duly noted.

I don't think I'm alone in finding much of this latest scare a tad suspect.

For anyone with the alcoholic gene or even a predisposition to
alcoholism through family history, the first drink can be highly
addicting and set off a chain of dependent behaviours that can take
years simply to identify.

In a society that encourages drinking and makes drinking socially
acceptable, alcoholics face more perils to their sobriety on a daily
basis than meth users ever will. I won't even get into the social
costs of rampant alcohol abuse and the expense to our health care
system. By the way, every drug does damage the first time you use it,
including alcohol. Most drugs come back to haunt you with physical
damage even years after you've quit.

I'd like to see people start taking responsibility for their stupid
choices and stop expecting the taxpayers to foot the bill every time
some new exotic drug catches their attention. I happen to know
someone who was addicted to meth for two years and still managed to
quit cold turkey. No rehab, no counselors, no heavily funded programs
to justify more heavily funded programs.

I realize drug addiction is a case by case situation, but the fact
remains it is possible to get off meth without the intervention of
half a dozen agencies.

To be perfectly honest, I'm really tired of hearing the Robsons'
continued bleating on this subject. Mayor Gord Robson has made some
pretty outrageous claims that simply can't be backed up by available
data, mainly because there doesn't seem to be any, not for Canada anyway.

I suspect that what we really have here is the age-old political ploy
of creating a problem that doesn't exist, then appearing to solve it.
In other words, take a few cases, blow them out of all proportion,
then appear to offer the solution. It's a great hook on which to run
for mayor, and even better to use later to run for a provincial seat.
Remember, Mr. Robson claimed he was legally challenging the core deal
out of his own pocket. Only later did we discover he was reimbursed
for his legal expenses. Nothing altruistic there.

If the Robsons were serious about wanting to help young people, why
then did they not even bother to find out what the provincial
regulations are regarding youth treatment houses? You can't even put
in a pool without a permit. That kind of disregard for a process
ensuring the safety and well being of possible clients leads one to
wonder exactly what qualifies the Robsons to pursue this issue with
any credibility?

If Mrs. Ashlie has questions and concerns about how crystal meth
awareness will be introduced to the students she was elected to
represent, then I think we should hear her out. I've seen no evidence
nor statistics nor even a survey suggesting there is a problem with
meth use even in Lower Mainland schools and certainly nothing of
epidemic proportions in the rest of society either. Until I do, I'm
reserving judgement on whether or not the proposed program is necessary.

Three million dollars for meth education from the province is a lot
of money and, personally, I think it could better spent in other
areas of education. There is solid evidence that alcohol is still the
main drug of choice for high school-aged kids and I'd like to see
more done to educate kids and their parents on that issue.

Carolyn Taplin

Maple Ridge