IT is only in recent times that we have become aware of the effects of passive smoking of tobacco. Concern being particularly for young children's health.

Presently we have talk of legalising or down grading other drugs. On rare occasions I have entered households where the smoky haze is not a variety I am familiar with, young children are happily playing. The adults are amiable and chatty. I can feel myself becoming a bit light headed and on leaving find my reversing skills in the car slightly impaired.

The purpose of a drug is to produce a mental malfunction. If your brain is stressed in its normal condition it might induce a relaxed state. This sounds good. In inducing this abnormality there may be side effects such as a chemical induced relaxed state impairing driving reaction times or judgements in manoeuvres. In simple terms the brain is not actually functioning efficiently or to the maximum of its biological design. But what do you care? You are feeling good, happy and confident.

Years from now some learned scholar is going to compile research and astound us with the findings that the education system wasn't failing. It was just that the passive drug taking of our children during their brains earlier cognitive development had impaired their ability to be educated effectively.

DENNIS IAN BERRIE, (Student and Teacher), Limetree Avenue, Broadway.