THE TIMES AREN'T A-CHANGIN'

WHEN the baby boomers were children, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
expressed memorable, if somewhat confusing, words to live by: "Things are
more like they are now than they ever were before."

How true. In the 1960s, many moms and dads of the Leave-It-to-Beaver
generation were regarded as hopelessly square and, in a phrase subsequently
popular, deeply in denial. Marijuana was tried at least once by about three
out of five of the formerly young. Even today, these middle-aged folks
often can be prodded into remembering a few lines of callow arrogance from
Bob Dylan's "Times They Are A-Changing":

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land And don't criticize what you
don't understand. Your sons and daughters are beyond your command, Your old
road is rapidly agin' . . .

Those were the days, my friend; we thought they'd never end. But the
boomers no longer are rebellious youngsters. They're parents themselves.
And, according to a national study by the New York-based Partnership for a
Drug-Free America, they also tend to be deeply in denial about pot-smoking
by their own children.

The organization's poll showed that 21 percent of parents acknowledge that
their teenagers have been offered drugs, but the young people put the
figure at 59 percent. Marijuana use by 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds
increased from 41 percent in 1996 to 48 percent last year.

"Boomers - many of whom have "been there, done that' - are surprisingly and
ironically out of step with the reality of drugs in their children's
lives," said Richard D. Bonnette, president of the advocacy group.

No big surprise, said Dr. Herbert Kleber, who had some anti-pot advice for
parents who had a toke or two in their youth and don't want to sound
hypocritical. Talk to your kids, he said.

We have heard that before. Ike was right.

)1998 San Francisco Examiner