Drug-related Reform

420

Founder
I agree with Arlington parent Maureen Maidlow, who said teachers shouldn't offer too much information. We want to encourage drug-free behavior, not awaken students' curiosity. Scare tactics and fear don't work as well as truth, trust and reason.

Based on a 2003 study by addiction researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo, alcohol use makes domestic violence eight times more likely. Marijuana use does not.

The idea of "inoculating" children against future drug use with elementary school programs - such as the police-based Drug Abuse Resistance Education ( DARE ) or the science-based anti-drug curricula now available from the federal government - may be having an adverse effect.

Current policy destroys families and everything America once stood for. Children of alcoholics suffer abuse and neglect. What about all the victims of fetal alcohol syndrome who fill our prisons? Methamphetamine is the latest smokescreen to take our eyes off the killer drugs we tolerate.

Drugs kill over 26 percent of the people who die each year in the U.S. Tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals kill about a quarter of us. Less than 1 percent die from all illicit drug use. And none, nada, not one single death is attributed to marijuana. Clearly, we are all safer to grow natural herb gardens.

Colleen Minter, Stephenville



Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2005 The Dallas Morning News
Contact: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com
Website: https://www.dallasnews.com/
 
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