KEEPING DRUGS AWAY FROM CHILDREN ANOTHER WAY TO ENHANCE OUR SECURITY

Each time our local newspapers do a story on the drug war we tend to hear
the same old rhetoric. However, the reality of the war on drugs stays the
same - it just keeps getting worse. The ability for sixth- grade children
to get substances like heroin and other drugs is nothing new. Whether its
cigarette companies or illegal drug businesses, their goal is the same: Get
kids hooked before they are too old to know the difference.

President Bush rightly called drug dealers "terrorists." Yet this
terminology seems to be getting a backlash. Perhaps consenting adults who
exchange drugs should not be called terrorists. But anyone who peddles
alcohol, tobacco or other drugs to children is nothing less than a
terrorist and threatens the security of this great nation.

Developmentally, children do not have the ability to use drugs safely. The
addition of drugs to a child's physiology alters that child. Our current
drug laws and policies allow children to be bombarded by these chemicals,
thus producing children who become different than those children who do not
use drugs. These changed children go out and entice other kids their age to
join them in their new way of life. Many of these children grow up, have
families and in many cases give their children drugs. If this has gone on
for the past 30 years, can you imagine ~how many of these children are now
adults and could be in places of authority?

We invested great amounts of money on security systems to protect our
nation from foreign attack, yet there was a break in that security system
which caused the collapse of our World Trade Centers. Another collapse of
our national security has and continues to poison our children. Pretending
that we are doing a great job protecting our most vulnerable citizens when
every day they are dying will have dire results.

Eventually it will lead to a culmination that will create far more terror
than what we have had to endure on September 11.

The prevention approach has its place in the drug war but must take a back
seat to intervention strategies if we are ever going to protect children.

Thank God the people who told our children to "Just say no" are gone. These
people did more harm to our children than good. If you want to keep a
3-year-old from taking a bottle of pills, you need to keep those pills
locked away in a safe place. If you want to protect teenagers from drug
use, then we need to make sure these substances are in a place where they
cannot be found. Until we do that, the age- old methods of drug prevention
will do little more than entertain our already intoxicated youth.

Al Rende,

Alden