My family’s pain over drug abuse
MY HEART goes out to the mother of 16-year-old drug user Ben NelsonRoux, whom she found dead in a homeless hostel (Mail).
My family knows what it’s like to have children addicted to drugs, but without this tragic ending — at the moment. That could change.
Two of my grandsons have ADHD and their schools couldn’t cope. The elder boy was sent to a centre for troubled teens, but there were only morning sessions. At a loose end in the afternoons, he fell prey to a gang who recruited him to sell drugs.
Even though my grandson didn’t use drugs, he liked money and designer clothes. But his younger brother started to take drugs and was quickly sucked in.
His debt to the dealers grew bigger and bigger, and soon he was disappearing overnight, travelling as far as Scotland to deliver drugs for the county lines gangs to earn £1,000 a time.
If he had an order, he would demand that his mother drive him. If she refused, he would smash up the house. He had to be removed from the family to protect a younger child.
Five years on, he is holding down a job, though I believe he is still using weed. His older brother is in prison after being arrested at the scene of a gang-related stabbing. If I live until I am 88, I may see him again.
I look at what happened to these two boys and wonder what could we have done differently as a family? I feel that we let them down.
Could their schools have done more? Drugs talk evenings could highlight the behaviour patterns to look out for and warn parents that their children are sitting ducks for these evil gangs.
Name supplied, London E4.
SOCIETY’S approach to drugs is similar to its views on prostitution: the supplier is seen as the villain when it is the end user who is causing the problem and encourages the illegal practice to escalate. The authorities need to start treating drug users as accomplices to a crime.
COLIN NICOL, Sutton, Surrey. AS HAS been shown in other countries trying to curb addiction, targeting drug barons does not work.
Arrest one and another criminal takes their place.
When I was a seafarer, I was subjected to random drug and alcohol tests. Anyone from the Master down would be sacked if they were shown to be under the influence on duty.
I believe every business should do the same. When it affects the man on the street, perhaps it will get through just how dangerous taking drugs can be.
W. NAPIER, Newcastle upon Tyne.