NOT HEALTHY

Editor, Naples Daily News:

Sheriff Hunter admits there is no chance of a drug-free Collier County, yet
that is the goal of the new anti-drug coalition.

Studies have shown that the DARE program increases the likelihood of
children using drugs in suburban areas, yet here is this unqualified
sheriff espousing DARE as one of the cornerstones of the anti-drug
coalition. This is a prime example of why we need to take the drug war out
of the criminal justice community and put it back in the highly educated
and qualified medical community as a health problem and disease.

A 1996 report by the U.S. Center on Substance Abuse Prevention noted that
"adolescence is a period in which youth reject conventionality and
traditional authority figures in an effort to establish their own
independence. For a significant number of adolescents, this rejection
consists of engaging in a number of 'risky' behaviors, including drug and
alcohol use.

Within the past few years, researchers and practitioners have begun to
focus on this tendency, suggesting that drug use may be a 'default'
activity engaged in when youth have few or no opportunities to assert their
independence in a constructive manner."

I don't expect a soccer mom and a cop to be educated about the scientific
data and findings.

Cannabis should be taxed and regulated. When you think about research
statistics on the availability of cannabis, over 80 percent of high school
seniors have said cannabis was fairly easy or very easy to obtain in annual
surveys since the 1980s, you realize prohibition is not working and has
never worked.

ANTHONY LORENZO

Sarasota