TOLERANCE PLEA ON YOUNG DRUG USERS

PORTRAYING young people as delinquents and locking them up for experimenting
with drugs was naive, a drugs expert told an international conference
yesterday.

Most young people who tried drugs did not continue using them or develop
significant problems, the first International Conference on Drugs and Young
People was told in Melbourne.

Young people usually experimented and used drugs sporadically before
stopping altogether, Macquarie University director of Clinical Drug
Dependence Studies John Howard said.

"Being told that drugs ruin your life is clearly a contradictory message
when young people see ex-users alive, coping and recovering," he said.

Dr Howard said young people were going to take drugs because it was a part
of their reality and families and communities had to deal with it.

"We really don't value our young people in Australia very much at all," Dr
Howard said.

"I think we need to see them as something that needs be controlled or
potential delinquents or these nasty people that need to be kept in these
holding patterns called schools and then kept in the social security system
until they are 25.

"When on earth are we going to allow people to grow up and be young and to
have some of the fun of being young and some of the risks that go with that?

"I'm not saying that it should be encouraged; I'm saying it is there ... and
to love our kids enough to be able to talk to us about what's going on
rather than have to hide."

Checked-by: Don Beck