CAN WE EVER WIN THE DRUG WAR?

It's never anything but sad when a young person dies in a drug-or
alcohol-related incident.

In fact, it's sad when anyone dies that way, young and old alike. But
then, people have been doing drugs and getting wasted on alcohol for a
long time, despite the many very real known dangers and risks.

Alcohol addiction made a hell of my mother's last 20 years, and a
horrific, alcohol-related car crash took the lives of four of my best
college friends in 1959, one of whom was the captain of the basketball
team and president of his senior class.

Drugs and alcohol, two of our nation's biggest killers, make for
uncomfortable conversation among parents of today's teenagers,
unthinkable as it is that ones own son or daughter could ever be the
victim of some drug or alcohol related tragedy.

But these things happen to someone every day, and it's only wishful
thinking to assume that such victims must be the products of troubled
homes. The truth is, many, if not most, come from what are usually
thought of a fine families and good homes.

Not surprisingly, the recent drug-related death of local 16-year-old
Dylan Hill has resulted in yet another public meeting aimed at
determining how best to deal with the ever-present reality of drug and
alcohol use here on Cape Ann. Hopefully this latest meeting, held
Thursday evening at Cruiseport Gloucester, will prove more than just
another case of communal hand-wringing.

An editorial in the Times that same day recommended that the meeting
"mark the beginning, not the end, of the fight against drugs." But
given the widespread availablity and use of drugs and alcohol in
society — including within the so-called sub-culture of youth — what
the Times refers to as a "fight" might better be labeled a "war."

And if it is truly war that must be fought to spare others from a fate
similar to that suffered by young Dylan Hill, then one of the first
fronts on which the battle must be waged is on that of the popular
culture, where the cynically promoted allure of the "high life" is
artfully paraded across the impressionable landscape of youthful
imagination, like an endless array of colorful penny candy dangled
enticingly before the eager eyes of the nation's youngest children.

What, finally, was the impulse or need, inherent or cultivated, that
led those four best friends of mine to drive to a nearby town for
another bout of drinking? Would they have headed out on that promising
late-spring afternoon, had they known that they would all be killed
some five hours later?

Deal successfully with that question, and a few lives will be saved.
Perhaps the drug and alcohol war may one day even be won.

Jim Munn, a frequent Times' contributor, is the boys track & field
coach at Gloucester High School.