HELP THE USERS

Editor:

Re: Drug Message Being Lost, Times, Sept. 26

The column does correctly identify the drug problem at schools. You
rightly identify the cause of the problem being primarily from poor
parental guidance.

(But) it is more complex than just blaming the parents. It is the
parent's lack of skills at parenting. Parents usually only start to
address the problem when it is too late.

Parents in this complex world need to be experts on child psychology.

Distractions are so much more than in the past.For instance in
pre-school parents who fail to direct children to watch something
like Sesame Street over violent cartoons need to know how this will
affect future behaviour. Parents need to be educated and if they are
not willing to put an effort to be an expert should get a cute puppy instead.

While lack of parenting may be the cause and better parenting will
eventually eliminate the problem, the solution is not to blame drug
pushers and attempt to jail them and the producers. Making drugs
illegal only wastes resources and if anything increases use.

Just like the old saying guns do not kill, people kill. It is not
drugs killing people it is the users of drugs who are killing
themselves. We need to stop wasting time trying to control the
availability of weapons and concentrate on the teaching the users to
put the weapon down, or never to pick them up.

Dan Banov

Maple Ridge