CHOOSE RIGHTS OF MAJORITY

AN INCREASING number of people, incuding parents, want the liberalisation
of cannabis laws. Yet they do not concede the harm that this "harmless"
drug will do to developing intellect of students that may have reached
physical maturity but have yet to reach their full potential academically.

Nor do they accept the right of other parents to protect their children
from exposure to the drug culture at school without the typical bullying
and peer pressure so prevalent in schools. The only way scociety can
protect its youth, and intellectual resource, is to adopt a zero tolerance
to this and other drugs in schools.

While this probably offends some parents and possibly social reformers,
inevitably those schools that have and enforce such a policy will be the
only ones that will have a growing and sustainable academic success rate.

A casual observation of the metropolitan schools would identify where there
is a growing drug/bullying/truancy problem. The same observation will
identify which schools are successfully tackling this problem and where
their academic achievement record is compared to others. No marks for
identifying whether schools actively enforcing zero tolerance are public or
private.

Liberalisation of cannabis laws can only be entertained when coupled with
the protection of our youth not to be pressured into this decision before
they are ready. Parents know by experience that their children often think
they are ready for rights and privileges before time. It would be better
to err on the side of caution for the collective rights of the majority of
parents, rather than the individual rights of the minority impatient
adolescents.

ANDREW POWER, Duncraig