A TIME AND PLACE FOR DRUGS

SHOULD YOU DO DRUGS? Not all use is intrinsically bad

Some experimentation considered 'developmentally normal'

Two things were certain for anyone who grew up in the Eighties:

1) If you experimented with sex, you'd end up with AIDS, and 2) if you
experimented with drugs, you'd end up covered in scabs in an east end-crack
house, soliciting $5 tricks for junk cut with rat poison.

As part of my elementary school anti-drug conditioning, I also learned that
the current strains of marijuana were "X times more potent" than what our
parents may have smoked.

We were even visited by police, who told us about the perils of drugs,
describing (in gory detail) the downward spiral that inevitably followed
the sampling of an illicit product.

The first time would be fun, they said, and would feel like an escape from
the challenges and drudgery of everyday life.

The second time would induce feelings of isolation and paranoia.

By the third time, the drug user would be losing control. He'd be robbing
his parents, shoplifting syringes, flailing in a sea of chaos and dementia
that would come to a dramatic conclusion at the airport, where officials
would hold his sickly frame at gunpoint while they waited for him to
discharge baggies of coke.

But despite the propaganda, the "just say no" generation found itself
saying "yes" once in a while. And many of us, to our great shock, survived
without experiencing the aforementioned calamities.

At 26 -- having experimented with both sex and drugs (the kinds that don't
require syringes) -- I pinch myself in the morning to make sure that this
is my life, that I really am healthy, that I'm not begging a pawn broker to
hock my parent's sofa so that I can buy speed.

Amazingly, I don't suffer from flashbacks. There are no track-marks on my
arms, nor do I have any embarrassing twitches or drooling problems.

Am I the lucky one? Or am I the norm?

According to an expert at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health,
my experimentation with drugs was just a part of a healthy development -- a
sharp contrast from anything I'd ever learned in school.

"The policy of the Centre for Addiction and Mental health is that drug use
isn't a no-no right across the board," says Dr. David Wolfe, RBC chair in
children's mental health at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. "A
certain amount of drug experimentation is developmentally normal."

Not only is it normal, it can actually be a good thing. "There's some
research that suggests that kids who don't experiment at all have some
other social adjustment problems," says Wolfe. "It's one of those cases
where too much is a bad thing and too little doesn't mean that you're
necessarily healthy either."

Nick Barry, a drug and alcohol counsellor in New Brunswick, agrees.

"People who act out when they're growing up, and maybe smoke the odd joint
or whatever, learn about how to manage these things later on better than
people who've never done them."

I've seen some friends struggle with drugs, and others who've dabbled in a
responsible, nonchalant manner.

Obviously, the drug experience is different for everyone, which is why it's
impossible to make an overriding statement about the role of drugs in
society -- and whether one should try them, or avoid them.

In answering the latter, I've always followed the "there's a time and a
place for everything" approach.

For me, most of high school was neither.

It sounds dorky, but during those years, I was too busy learning about
myself, and trying to figure out what kind of life I wanted to live to be
tempted by that which alters the mind. I was terrified about the prospect
of losing what limited footing I had.

Not to mention the fact that I was dubious of how trustworthy my friends
were in those days.

No offence, but my pals seemed volatile at the best of times, let alone
when they were messed on drugs. If I were to experiment with drugs, I
surely didn't want to do it at the back of the mall parking lot with a
scruffy clan of anorexic girls and pimply, self-destructive thugs.

If something went wrong, I'd be on my own.

Needless to say, it's different when you're a little older, and you've got
friends you can trust and a place of your own.

To ask yourself the "to do drugs or not to do drugs" question, as is the
theme of this week's I.D. section, is also a time to think about the nature
of your own personality, and whether drugs are something you'll be able to
manage.

Wolfe says one factor in how a person will cope with drugs has to do with
his or her upbringing.

He prompts us to ask ourselves: "Were either of your parents addicted to
substances? If you grew up in a home where there was a lot of drinking,
smoking or drug usage, you're at risk."

According to Wolfe, that applies to harder drugs, too. But for people
who've reached a certain level of emotional stability in their lives and
friendships, even cocaine could be managed by a casual user.

"I believe very few people become addicted to a drug like cocaine, not only
because it's expensive, but because most people who come from a solid
background, have solid friendships and a life plan aren't going to start
using it every day," says Wolfe. "It's totally recreational in that sense."

"The ones who tend to get in trouble with it tend to have other risk
factors, and if they don't get in trouble with that, they'll probably get
in trouble with something else."

No matter who you are or what issues you have, every drug presents a
worst-case scenario (what you heard about in school and on Miami Vice), and
a best-case scenario (the eye-opening, culturally bonding experience you
heard on the euphoric drug albums of the 1960s).

Anyone who dabbles will experience something within that spectrum.

As Barry says, some will have troubles with substances, but others -- the
vast majority of us -- will be just fine.

"Certain people are going to become addicted to drugs no matter what," says
Barry.

"It's in their personality. Those are the ones who always want more. But
most people can take something and then leave it alone."

We live in a country that has mixed feelings about drugs. You can see that
in the lingering federal debate about the lawfulness of marijuana possession.

The very fact that the question is on the table tells me that drugs might
not be as evil as they once told us. And it's okay to "Just Say Maybe."