‘Drug Supply No Problem To Kent Schoolchildren’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 7

‘Drug Supply No Problem To Kent Schoolchildren’

IN Z P.A.-Reuter —Copt/riphtl

LONDON,

Schoolchildren in a Kent town can get drugs as easily as buying a packet of cigarettes, and are usually introduced to marijuana or amphetamine pills at parties, says a booklet published in London, the “Evening News” reported.

parties usually take place at one of the group’s somes or in derelict premises, but people are wrong to think that they degenerate into teenage sex orgies, the booklet says. A Conservative councillor and solicitor. Mr Simon Randall. aged 25, wrote the pamphlet about Bromley, Kent, although he says the situation could apply to almost any town.

“Most drug-taking in Bromley takes place in a group context at ‘pot parties’ or ‘pill parties’ which, contrary to the ideas of most members of the public, do not end up in mass sexual orgies," he says. The availability of drugs at parties was clear both from evidence given by schoolchildren and from indications in the local press. “The ‘joints’ are passed around the room, or the bottle of pills is divided up between those present—one hears of cases of young people who take up to 30 pills on a Saturday night. “At all-night parties, amphe-

tamines—drugs which were also used during the Second World War to keep troops alerts—are taken by young people to keep them awake,

and to enjoy themselves," Mr Randall says. But the excitement stops there.

“The regular drug-takers tend to become introverted and boring, talking about the effects of the drugs they are taking, and slowly this becomes their only joy in life." One 18-year-old girl is quoted as saying: “Access to drugs in Bromley is as easy as buying a packet Of cigarettes,” and, in a survey, about one in six schoolchildren said they had been offered drugs.