IS YOUR TEENAGER CONCERNED ABOUT INEQUALITY AND POLLUTION?

CALL A DRUG COUNSELLOR

Do the teenagers you know talk excitedly about inequality, racial
discrimination or pollution? If so, according to a pamphlet doing the
rounds in the United States, they may be exhibiting the first symptoms of
drug addiction.

The pamphlet by Gerald Smith, a criminology professor in Utah, vividly
describes these warning signs for the benefit of parents worried that their
children may be regular users of marijuana and other drugs.

The affected youth may "avoid the family while at home", the 66-page
booklet says, and show "excessive preoccupation with social causes, race
relations, environmental issues etc".

In the introduction, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, a Mormon minister from
Salt Lake City, thunders "a morally depraved society . . . has chosen to
embrace, rather than attack, this plague" of marijuana use.

But the senator believes that with the help of God and Mr Smith's little
book, young Americans can be led along the path to a "marijuana-free life".

So he tells parents: "Study this book . . . and look for the many warning
signs of any children who are using marijuana or drugs of any kind."

The pamphlet is unclear whether the same "warning signs" show up in adults.
In which case, Mr Hatch may soon need to provide a urine sample of his own.
The Utah senator has been turning suspiciously liberal at the edges
recently. He has backed federally funded child care and gone out of his way
to condemn violent attacks on homosexuals - surely policies with a whiff of
weed about them.

And then there is President Clinton. The rightwing maverick, Ross Perot,
claimed this week that the president's lack of judgement in sexual matters
is evidence of drug abuse. But perhaps the second-term evaporation of the
Clinton social agenda offers conclusive proof that the young Bill did not
inhale after all.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski