TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS

"A killer 33 times the strength of Ecstasy," screamed the Mirror's headline
last week. Cue new panic over designer drugs which, reports in most papers
said, had already killed three.

We are suckers for this kind of thing and we swallow the warnings every
time. On this occasion, the deadly drugs were identified as DOB, a more
powerful version of Ecstasy, and also known as Golden Eagle, and
Flatliners, a substance said to trigger out-of-the-body experiences.

Never mind that these drugs have been around for at least 20 years: parents
read these stories and quake, as they are supposed to do. But how do
teenagers read them? How, in particular, do the estimated 500,000 who take
Ecstasy of a weekend, react? They have a mind-blowing experience, discover
what they swallowed was allegedly a dangerous poison, and react as anyone
would - they don't believe it.

And they are right. The only drug powerful enough to kill a human being in
a single tablet is cyanide. Professor John Henry, head of accident and
emergency medicine at St Mary's Hospital, London, and former medical
director of the National Poisons Information Service, made a lot of people
unhappy when he pointed out this inconvenient fact at the time Leah Betts
died. She, you may remember, collapsed after taking half an Ecstasy tablet
on her 17th birthday in November 1995, which then triggered a huge campaign
against the evils of the drug.

What killed Leah Betts was the huge quantity of water she drank to
counteract the drug's effects. The water made her brain swell, causing loss
of consciousness, coma and death. To claim that she died of Ecstasy is like
saying that a person who fell asleep holding a lighted cigarette and set
fire to his house died of smoking.

Young people who have taken Ecstasy and then danced all night in a crowded
club with too little liquid to drink have died of overheating. The answer
is to drink plenty of water, preferably with salt added. Leah, who had not
been dancing, believed water was an antidote to Ecstasy. It is not: it is
an antidote to dancing.

The truth about the latest panic emerged at Plymouth coroners court last
Thursday. Private Steven Evans, 21, the soldier supposed to have been
killed by the lethal new substance, Flatliners, had in fact binged on an
enormous cocktail of drugs taken over a period of 48 hours. The post-mortem
found evidence of alcohol, opiates, cocaine, methadone, cannabis, two types
of ecstasy and the new drug called 4-MTA (Flatliners). His body finally
gave out.

The panic about drugs is disportionate to the harm they cause. Drinking by
young people causes 10 times more damage, yet its dangers are ignored. As
the quantity drunk has been rising, the average age at which drinking
begins has been falling. On average, boys aged 13 drink four pints of beer
a week, or equivalent, and girls aged 13 drink three pints. Alcohol
produces violent behaviour, is implicated in a third of male suicides and
also leads to unprotected sex.

The hardest task for any parent of teenagers is to keep the lines of
communication open (I know, I am one). To do that, maintaining credibility
is critical. We have to tell the truth about drugs or we will not be
believed. If we are not believed, we lose the only means we have to protect
our children.

Checked-by: Richard Lake