MAKE GOOD CHOIICES

In recent weeks several stories and letters to the editor have
appeared in this newspaper concerning a suggestion that a drug-free
zone be established around Stanley Humphries, Twin Rivers and
Castlegar Primary schools.

Dismayed by the thought of drugs in the schools, a parent's group and
a prominent city councillor suggested that a zero-tolerance zone be
examined as a way to rid schools of drugs.

The News received several e-mails calling the idea "silly" and an
instrument to increase rather than decrease drug use by juveniles.

Based on first-hand Kootenay experience from J.L. Crowe Secondary in
Trail, where a DFZ has been in place for six or seven years, principal
Doug Hickey commented that lately the DFZ hasn't been successful in
lessening student drug use.

First-hand experience is hard to ignore, yet Hickey made an additional
comment that is equally important to grasp: kids aren't making very
good decisions.

Kids aren't the only ones making poor decisions these days. Look
around, look in the mirror to assess present day critical thinking.

People chose to smoke in the face of overwhelming evidence that
doesn't merely suggest but states emphatically that smoking is killing
them and putting an enormous strain on a failing health care system.
The government hasn't chosen to criminalize cigarette smoking and
continues to allow giant multinational tobacco companies to sell and
profit from the sale of a known harmful substance.

People still chose to drink and drive, putting themselves and others
at risk every time they slip sloshed behind the wheel. Here, at least,
the government has drawn a clear and reasonable line by making such an
act a criminal offence. Yet at the same time, the B.C. government
draws huge profits every year from the sale of alcohol.

And people continue to stuff their faces and sit on their butts, in
spite of an alarming increase in obesity across the populace and the
health risks associated with poor eating habits and inactivity. Again,
the government has not stepped in to declare cream puffs or labour
saving devices illegal.

Across society today some horrendously awful choices are being made by
adults every minute of the day and night. With such sterling role
models to follow, how can kids be expected to do any better?

"Make the right choice about drugs," the parent tells the child,
cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth, wine bottle
clutched in her hand.

The hard-liners on either side of the drug legalization debate do
little to help matters; the anti-drug side continuing to propagate the
reefer madness myth while the pro-drug side claiming marijuana to be
perfectly harmless. They continue to take pot shots at each other,
failing to notice the public - and the kids - in-between.

Does it matter what reason an employer gives for letting the main
breadwinner of a family go, whether it's continually coming to work
drunk or constantly arriving at work stoned? A car travelling down the
wrong side of the freeway will do the same amount of damage whether
driven by a drunk or a stoner. Substance abuse isn't ruining people's
lives, poor decision making is destroying lives.

One of the e-mails sent to the News suggests, tongue in cheek, that if
a drug-free school zone works, why not a drug-free city or drug-free
country? (A drug-free Castlegar wouldn't work as the region's economy
would unduly suffer.) But why not a good choices zone where everyone
gives some thought to the consequences of their actions?

Simple signs could be erected around town displaying clowns behind red
circles with backslashes.

No bozos zone! The future of our children is no laughing matter.