I am very happy to be back writing for the Sussex newspaper and the good people of Sussex. I don’t know if you missed me, but I sure missed YOU!
You might have seen an article in this newspaper a few weeks ago about my fundraising hike around the UK coast. If you missed it, the article is here.
Briefly, on 1st May this year, starting in East Grinstead High Street and heading for the coast, I embark on a 4000+ mile hike around the entire coast of mainland Britain. All on my little lonesome I will pass through over a thousand coastal towns and villages before returning to East Grinstead High Street some time in November (I hope). You can find the gruesome details on my website but I figured I owe you some words of explanation as to why on earth I decided to put myself through all that.
My purpose is to raise funds to support the excellent work of the drug educator, Peter Dwan, who brings his superb drug education talks to children in schools across the country.
The truth of the matter is that we have a serious drug problem and we, as a community need to take it by the scruff of the neck and do something about it.
This problem sits as a potential blight upon the futures of so many of our children. Currently, there are almost 13 million children in the UK and the various UK drug statistics show that drug use amongst our children occurs at an increasingly younger age. I don’t have the stats to hand but, from memory, the Home Office published not so long ago that: 1 in 12 of 12-year-olds have tried drugs; as have 1 in 3 [33%] of 14-year-olds and 2 in 5 [40%] of 16-year-olds.
As if that is not enough to give any parent or teacher nightmares, other drug and alcohol stats tell us that 3,000 UK children try drugs and/or alcohol for the first time, each day.
The result is that more than one million children are newly added to drug and alcohol statistics in a single year and more than a quarter of a million UK children experiment with drugs (excluding alcohol), every year.
No child ever says: “when I grow up I want to be a drug addict”, yet far too many of them do and despite the best efforts of so many very fine parents!
Of those young drug users, one in ten will progress to harder, addiction-forming drugs: the likes of heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth and so forth. In other words, each year, an average of 25 thousand youngsters will fall into addiction and become registered drug addicts when older.
As well as destroying the addict, these drugs visit a nightmare upon the families of the victims, many of whom blame themselves and are left wondering where they went wrong. The tragedy is that the best of upbringings and the most loving of families do not guarantee immunity from this scourge. Drugs do not respect upbringing, class, cultural background or intelligence.
Moreover, drug addiction is notoriously difficult to resolve once it has taken hold. It turns what were once bright children with their futures in front of them into a burden on society. The strain on the addict’s family is colossal and frequently insurmountable. Many addicts spiral down into prostitution and crime, becoming unemployable, possibly even living on the streets.
Subject to peer pressure, tricks, lies and persuasions by those who want them to buy their drugs – for life – and having insufficient knowledge or life experience to deal with them, none could foresee where a youngster’s experimentation with drugs would take them.
They were merely lacking proper drug education: knowledge and life experience with which to make the rational choices of which they are innately capable; sufficient truth that would have provided a map to get them safely through that minefield of half truths, sales pitches and downright lies.
Effective drug education is the answer.
It is generally known that children are becoming more and more exposed to drugs and pro-drug persuasions and have more easy access to them than children would have had just ten or twenty years ago. This is a brutal fact of modern life and something of a nightmare for parents.
The question is: how do we equip children to walk safely through this minefield?
Common sense tells us that early education against drug use is the answer. In fact, it is the only answer: 
threats, punishment, moralising, pleading and scare tactics have not worked. By education is meant giving the child factual information that he can understand and relate to at his current level of life experience, then use to make his own rational decisions about drugs.
Yet teachers are aware that Drug Education is outside their own field of expertise. Indeed, it is outside the expertise of most parents who are unsure how to approach the subject with their children to best results.
The drug educator, Peter Dwan, fulfils an urgent need by providing drug education to teachers, parents and most importantly, to school children.
He aims to provide this vital Drug Education to children BEFORE they come into contact with drugs and BEFORE they can be subjected to the lies and sales pitches of drug dealers and profiteers.
It is essential that we reach every child before the dealers do and provide them with vital truths regarding the harmful effects and longer term consequences of drug use so that they do not have the desire or interest to use drugs when they do come into contact with them and their attendant peer pressures in the future.
It is vital that our children are provided with effective education so that they can be empowered to make informed choices. After all, in so many cases, those educated choices can be the difference between life and death.
So that is why on 1st May I will leave home comforts behind me and spend nine months or so on the road. My goal is to give Peter’s efforts a massive boost, partly by raising funds to help him reach ALL the nation’s children and partly by getting the whole nation behind a sustained shoulder-to-shoulder effort to help our children live drug-free lives.
If we can pull this off, then the rewards will be tremendous in terms of a reduction in the crime and mental and physical health problems that drugs cause and a resurgence of our national culture.
That’s a big enough game to keep me out of mischief for a while.
Steve’s website is at www.stevecookwriter.co.uk