Drug abuse is ‘the curse of the computer age’

We lifted the above headline from Tuesday's Daily Mail, which printed the screamer to promote an interview with Keith Hellawell, Britain's anti-drugs 'Czar'. Enthusiasm appears to have got the better of the sub-editor who wrote the header, because Hellawell doesn't actually claim that drug abuse is "the curse of the computer age". However, he does blame the instant gratification-is-not-quick-enough attitudes of "this generation". Instant stimulation from inter alia computer games leads to extremely low boredom thresholds, which in turn leads to willingness to experiment with drugs. "This generation has had everything," Hellawell tells the Mail. "It's had foreign travel, you can get on the computer and you have access to whole world, computer games -- it's all about instant stimulation. "How many young girls play hopscotch in the playground nowadays? The games that our generation had to be satisfied with, the stimulus was personal involvement in team sports. The stimulus comes to you now." Is that really the best Britain's anti-drugs co-ordinator can come up with for the reasons for endemic illegal drug use/abuse in this country? "Things were better in my day -- we were poor but we were happy." Not very bright, is he? ® Related stories Brit Net agency to track drug gangs and paedophiles Cyber narcotics to outwit police Date rape drug – two arrested for Net sales