DRIVING AND DRUG USE AND CHALLENGE

Cobourg isn't the only community where the number of teenagers using drugs,
in particular cocaine and marijuana, is on the rise. It's on the rise just
about everywhere else too, and, in the process, causing unique problems for
police as well as the users themselves.

Marijuana and cocaine can impair a driver's physical faculties and mental
processes as effectively as alcohol. Drunken drivers can be identified on
the spot by breath and other standardized tests. Drug users are another
matter. Specialized training is needed to identify drivers under the
influence of drugs, at least in ways that satisfy the courts.

The dimensions of the latter problem are apparent in the Ontario Student
Drug Use Survey which found teenage use of cocaine, while still limited to
a small proportion of the population, has risen four-fold over the past
year. At least half of the users have drivers' licenses.

Cobourg Police Chief Garry Clement touched upon this latter aspect of drug
use recently, pointing out that the police need specialized training to
detect drug impairment. The dominant objection of the police to
decriminalization of drugs has been the need for that training and for
established definitions of impairment similar to those for alcohol.

The Chief says he hopes to obtain the necessary training for at least two
of his 38 officers. Two out of 38 isn't large enough to assure safe
driving, not when drug usage is on the rise. But, it will at least be a
start. How many more officers can be trained will depend on budgets and
available training facilities.

In the meantime, why is cocaine use on the rise? Dr. Edward Alaf, who
conducts the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, cites a number of reasons,
One of them is the current generation's all-pervasive "Why Not?" syndrome.
The interests of today's teens are so concentrated on the present, he says,
they have very little memory of the past.

The frequent and often well-publicized deaths from drug overdoses in the
80s, the last time a wave of rising drug use washed through, were salutary
reminders of its dangers. Those reminders are missing these days. Only
about a third of young people identify cocaine use as risky, he says,
because of what he describes as "generational forgetting".

Containment of drug use at the source seemingly is to be found in
"generational reminders" of its dangers. That is also true of so much else
that is going wrong in today's society. Regrettably, those generational
reminders are more often ignored than observed.