I am so grateful that drugs were not so freely available when I was at school. Later, I smoked a hookah in Asia and ME and had a couple of reefers in UK. In the first two places it was pure unalloyed relaxation while the reefers were, in every sense ''a joke''. I guess that the point I'm really making is that there was no drug culture - no pressure to do it whatsoever and it is this that sends youngsters down the wrong road. They don't know how to say 'No'. I worked with the homeless, some of whom are addicts in the 90s for a few years, and it really is dire - schooldays and youth will never be what many of us knew. I'm certain that the best first step to breaking the habit, as with recidivism among prisoners, is a complete change of environment - sadly, far easier said than done. We began doing it in NZ, and it worked. It's possible anywhere except obviously on a very small island where there is only one environment. UK needs to dig in and try it - health and happiness accepted, it's also financially very much cheaper in the mid and longer turn.
