Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jul 2001
Source: Independent (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Ian Flintoff
Note: Letter writers please provide postal address.

LEGALISE DRUGS NOW

The drugs debate is of such importance that all aspects, including the most 
fundamental, must not go unmentioned.

What has to be admitted in the first place is that people of any generation 
have failed to shape and provide a world which young people can embrace and 
relish, for the anticipation of their entire lives, with joy, eagerness and 
clear-mindedness.

I regard the booming drug culture as, in part, a symbol of my own personal 
failure in fighting to make a world the young can inhabit with clear-eyed 
delight.  My own blame is at least matched by those who have governed us 
for the last half-century.

Whereas we have it in our power to transform the world - and our own 
society - into a thing of adequate justice and harmony for all to share in 
the full clear-headedness of their own being, we have instead allowed a 
place of uneasiness and escape to arise which many of the young can 
tolerate through befuddlement.

Whether drugs should be decriminalised or not isn't the most urgent 
question.  Where, for young people's sake, do we find an inspirational 
present, and a future?

Ian Flintoff
London, SW6
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