WORLD VIEW NEEDED

Re: New epidemic strikes young teens, Feedback, the Observer, April 29.

In her column, Khela Harshan asks "Why is this problem becoming more
and more prevalent amongst teens?

It isn't. The times may have changed, but the prevalence of drug use
has only become more known... it hasn't become any greater.

Drug use was very common when I was 13 years old, and that was 34 years ago.

About one-third of the people with whom I went to high school had
used marijuana at least once by the end of Grade 8, and by the time
they graduated, more than a quarter were regular (even frequent)
users, although many gave it up as the grew older. (If your parents
are average Canadians, more than one of every 10 people they work and
socialize with is a regular marijuana smoker. Can you tell which ones
they are?)

Methamphetamine (known locally back then as "speed") was common and
easy to find, though just like today, it was actually only a very
small handful of people that young who used it. LSD was everywhere,
and while MDMA (ecstacy) didn't yet exist in the commercial market
back then, its close-cousin MDA certainly did, and it was easily available.

Don't listen to fear-mongering opinions disguising themselves
(sometimes not very cleverly) as truth. Get the real numbers and get
to know them. Reliable drug-use statistics from most of the western
world will tell you a more general and global version of everything
I've just said.

Michael Muirhead

Queen Charlotte, B.C.