29^th January 1999

Drugs and Youth

What are three hot issues to rant about? I can use up this rant discussing my next three choices.

A boy, allegedly 12, but actually 16 was photographed shooting up heroin with the use of a clean needle supplied by the needle exchange program workers in Sydney's inner south.

The state government reacts by halting the program saying that we weren't supposed to be in the business of helping minors take smack. A law probably exists to enforce a state guardianship arrangement. As it turns out, the boy is 16 and can only be arrested for being a junkie.

But with the sympathy chord still vibrating from the pluck of the Sun-Herald article, that is not an option thankfully.

The use of drugs is perplexing to many people. The lack of hope for many of our young people is easily left unaddressed by "tackling the drug problem". The thought of spending money on young people generally is beyond us as a community it seems.

The very generation that had the chance to live through the sixties, whether they inhaled or not, is now oppressing society.

end of rave.

(C)opyright Sylvano Lucchetti.