TEEN DRUG USE NOT A HUGE PROBLEM

I'm certain that I represent a minority opinion in this matter, but I'd
like to express it. To begin, having lived 20 plus years in the GTA, I can
assure Times readers that the discovery of small quantities of marijuana in
our local high schools hardly makes Cambridge a town with a teenage
substance abuse problem.

Are the memories of middle-aged folks in this town that deficient, or are
they simply selective? Gee, I hope it isn't due to all the substance abuse
we did in the 70's...

I have two lovely daughters, the eldest is 13. Like all girls her age, she
has little patience with adolescence and would prefer to be 18 immediately.
I will not lie to my daughter and tell her that drugs make you feel bad. I
tell her the truth: they make you feel great and that's the problem. That
is why so many people become addicted and face the rest of their lives
fighting it each day. This discussion with my daughter pertains to the
nastier street stuff: cocaine, heroin, and the host of new "designer" drugs
available to our youth.

As for myself, I tell her that yes, I did do a little marijuana as a
teenager and would prefer she didn't try it until she is an adult because
it will retard her emotional development. That is, whenever she has a bad
day, she'll use this benign drug to feel better, rather than learn how to
cope naturally.

I continue to tell her the truth by saying that I stopped doing it as a
young adult because life itself was getting weird and I needed to see
things clearly.

Why do our kids experiment with drugs? Because that is the very nature of
adolescence - making mistakes and learning by them. Have you ever met
someone from our generation who made all the right choices with their life?
I have and I can assure you that they seem to go through life completely
clueless about themselves and the world around them.

Unlike our teenaged years in the '60s and '70s, todays teenagers pay dearly
for their mistakes. Many of the drugs our local police didn't find in our
schools will quickly turn someone into a helpless junkie.

If our teenagers engage in unprotected sex, they can contract a terminal
disease and die. If our kids don't "make the grade" in school, there are no
more unionized manufacturing jobs out there ; they'll live a life of
poverty ("Would you like fries with that, Sir?").

Today's teenagers face problems and pressures that simply didn't exist in
our youth ; if a little marijuana use is as bad as it gets, we're doing fine.

R. Fraser

Cambridge