PARENTS HAVE THE POWER

Dear Editor:

I agree with the article in the Oct. 30 Echo which says that youths must be
educated about street drugs.

However, with regard to Det. Steve Walton, a Calgary Police Service
veteran, who comments: "At the forefront, it's a parental issue. We need to
know who our children are running with." He is right, it is a parental
issue, but much more so than Det. Walton understands by his second
statement. The truth is addicts let themselves get addicted, although most
of them don't know this themselves. That is the real tragedy. They use
these substances because they hurt. Addiction to any and all substances is
only a symptom.

The drugs (including the recreational drug alcohol, a drug with a high
intoxication risk and the most dangerous) are not the problem. The problem
is a society that is too willing to buy the prohibitionist's party line
that it's the drug. This is the true cop out. The truth is almost without
exception -- all addictions are a symptom of low to zero (internal)
self-esteem. Who else would live in a gutter but a person with no
self-worth. Addicts are programmed as children. Parents have all the power,
not the police.

Kevin Allan

North Vancouver, B.C.