CATASTROPHIC US PROGRAM

The topic of "AntiDrugs Disco" has only ever elicited grins from the youth
that I have interviewed. Not only do the nonpolice druguseprevention
groups recognize that such methods are ineffectual, but also the actual
target group itself.

I am not convinced that law enforcement agencies should possess legislative
authority over drug education issues. The catastrophic USprogram D.A.R.E.,
conducted by uniformed police officers within the schools throughout the
nation, is producing at the moment the hugest wave of drug use among the
young people there. Although this generation has received such intensive
antidrug propaganda from the law enforcement side as no other before it,
the number of firsttime users among school youth continues to climb
unchecked.

For drug education society needs critically thinking persons instead of
people whose job it is to enforce uncritically adherence to the drug laws.

Instead of planning more of these not really inexpensive
"AntiDrugHappenings", it would be better to end the "Holy Drug War" a la
America as quickly as possible, before it escalates further. That does not
mean then that we no longer have a plan: we Europeans, namely, already have
a functioning model for a drug policy worthy of the future in the
Netherlands.

Matthew Appleby