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selves battling a massive drug prob–
lem among young people. Outside
inftuences and peer pressure, which
compel children to try drugs, are
almost overwhelming in the age we
live in.
How can parents protect their
children from this ever-menacing
drug world?
Family ls Crucial
There is only one sound in–
stitution that can protect children
from falling prey to the drug world:
the family. No matter if it involves
children who live in a ghetto, a sub–
urban middle-class residential area
or an upper, upper-class home, au–
thorities agree that the family is the
crucial predictor as -to whether or
not children and teen-agers will turn
to drugs.
Dr. Richard H. Blum, a noted au–
thority on drugs, and the director of
the Joint Program in Drugs, Crime,
and Community Studies at the lnsti–
tute for Public Policy Analysis at
Stanford University in California,
along with a number of associates,
conducted a unique study of drugs
and the family. He found that the
single most powerful infiuence in
combatting drug taking
is
the family.
"Tbe family is
the
institution for
forming responsible citizens. The
peer group, contrary to what is com–
monly believed, has little or no in–
ftuence as long as the family
remains strong. Peers take over only
when parents have abdicated, and
parents will tend to abdicate if fam–
ily life and values are demeaned,"
summed up Dr. Blum and his asso–
ciates in
Horatio Alger's Children,
the published compilation of their
studies on drugs and the family.
The burden of responsibility is
mainly on paren ts, not on the
schools, the churches, the courts, the
penal institutions, or the medica!
facilities. Parents can either help
cause or help prevent their chil–
dren's involvement in tbe drug
world. It's the family structure and
environment created by parents that
is the crucial factor. Right parental
example
is
of paramount importance.
PLAIN TRUTH December 1973
Setting the Example
Do you rely on pills and tranquil–
izers to meet everyday problems?
How many kinds of medicines do
you store in the fami ly medicine
chest? How much liquor do you
keep on hand?
Just what do these questions have
to do with teen-agers and drugs?
Major studies show there is a di–
rect association between illegal drug
use by children and teen-agers and
parents' attitudes toward the use of
alcoholic beverages and prescription
and "over- the-counter" drugs.
When parents drink heavily and
se r ve alcoholic beverages fre–
quently, or often rely on pills and
tranquilizers for everyday problems,
their children are more likely to turn
to drugs and become drug abusers.
In other words, parents who do so
are setting an example of drug use
for their children.
Dr. Serge Lebovici , a psychiatrist
and psychoanalyst, and a consultant
for France's Parliamentary Com–
mission on Drugs, found a direct
correlation between parents' use of
alcohol, tranquilizers, pills and
other medicines within the home
and illegal drug use by children.
Said Lebovici in an interview:
" ... We are hit with the fact that
drug use often occurs in the family
context where there already exists
an atmosphere of intoxication.
These tendencies toward in–
toxication are important, not only in
the use of tobacco and alcohol, but
especially in the massive con–
sumption of medicines.... The par–
ents, just like the children, try to
escape anguish: the former by medi–
cines, the latter by drugs"
(Le Fig–
aro,
October 28, 1971 ).
D r. Reginald G. Smart of the Ad–
diction Research Foundation, To–
ronto, Canada, made the followi ng
significan! findings concerning ado–
lescent and parental drug use in two
questionnaire surveys of 14,468 On–
tario students:
For every legal or illegal drug in–
vestigated. if the parents were
frequent users. then so were their
children. Ifparentswere in–
frequent drug users or non–
users , their children were
likely to be non-drug users.
Children whose mothers
used tranquilizers were more
1
\?
''·'
l ike ly to use marijuana, '.
opiates, stimulants, speed,
ioi
tranquilizers, LSD and other
c.J
hallucinogens, glue, and bar-
1
~"
biturates.
The children of mothers who
used tranquilizers daily were
three times as likely to smoke
marijuana or use LSD or glue, five
times as likely to use stimulants,
speed or other hallucinogens, six
times as likely to use opiates, and
seven times as likely to use tranqui–
lizers and barbiturates. And, adds
Dr. Smart,
"It
should be remem–
bered that a similar picture could be
drawn for mothers and fathers who
were users of stimulants and bar–
biturates [sleeping pills]."
Other studies involving thousands
of high school and junior high
scbool students have shown similar
connections between the parents' le–
gal drug use, including alcohol use,
"What worries me are the
wrinkles in my face and the
infection in my veins. l'm very
sad when 1think what l've
done with my life. 1feel like
dying. l've had all the chances
and betrayed all the trust. "
and their children's illicit drug use.
It is absolutely hypocritical for a
parent to warn and threaten chil–
dren against using drugs when the
parent himself or herself is setting
an example of drug use. The same is
true of the parent who warns the
son or daughter against the evi ls of
smoking marijuana while exhaling a
stream of smoke from a cigarette,
pipe, or cigar. (All three methods of
smoking lead to cancer and emphy–
sema, as well as to a number of
otber diseases.)
In Dr. Blum's studies, which em–
phasize the importance of right pa-
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