Steve Gaunt Pontificates

The UK Drugs Debate.

People are worried by the fact that millions of young people are taking the so-called recreational drug Ecstasy whilst out dancing at the weekend. They don’t seem to understand how this can have happened.

Let's see if I can through some light on this.

In the late 1960’s when I was a young man, the powers that be clamped down on what they called the menace of cannabis. You should have seen the propaganda films we were shown, all the debilitating and long term effect that users risked, no not risked, it would happen to them.! "Everything will be lost if we allow this to continue" they said.
Tighter controls were put on ports and airports and the deadly drug trade (we are talking about cannabis here not heroin) was slowed to a trickle. The authorities were smug (no doubt about it).

They failed entirely to see what cannabis was about, in fact it was just another version of alcohol if somewhat less dangerous than that legal drug. Cannabis was taken by people with a more relaxed view of life who felt that the anger-inducing alcoholic drinks were not for them.

Many users of cannabis started to look around for something else to experiment with because of the shortage of cannabis..
And some bright spark came up with sniffing glue. Yes, there is no doubt, this vile and extremely dangerous practise was brought about entirely by the government of those days and their misguided attempts to stamp out drug use!

Quickly locking the door after the horse had bolted they put more restrictions on the availability of the solvent substances but the damage was already done. You see glue was available to anybody. Little kids who would have been kept away from the cannabis culture were able to get hold of the glue that their older brothers and sisters had tried and quickly seen the danger of.

Yes the authorities had moved drug use from an educated minority, into the realm of young children. In the ensuing years the sniffing glue kids became the 'E' generation and passed it on to their younger peers.
So when they come on TV and moan about what has happened you will see that it is entirely there own fault.
When people in authority say, "Don’t do that because I say so" kids wont listen.

The evidence of the danger of heroin and cocaine is plain to see and always has been. As for the rest, it is not so clear cut and young people will make up there own minds as they always have.

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Introduction	Local Transport
Old Mill Buildings	Old Mill Buildings 2
Jobs For Over 40's	The University Page
Kirklees Roads - Part 2	The Euro Debate
The UK Drugs Debate	Music Snobs
Aunty Beeb	Desert Island Disks
Fashion	The Internet
Response From Steve