A more basic and specific role for the religious community, however, lies in dealing directly with the issues of private moral choice. The Commission noted in our first Report that "What we need, below and above all our deliberations, is the growth and development of an ethical system." In the collective task of determining the ethics of drug use, the religious community can make its most significant contribution. The Commission has identified four important issues in the realm of private moral choice on which the religious community needs to focus its expertise and insight.

First are the moral issues surrounding risk-taking behavior of all kinds. Clearly, neither society nor religious doctrine considers all riskaking behavior morally wrong. Underground mining and the construction of skyscrapers are high risk occupations, but not immoral ones; accepted recreations, like skiing and sky-diving also involve isks. On most behavior, the risk-benefit ratio is weighed and a judgnent made about whether it is "worth the risk."

Drug use, too, is a form of risk-taking behavior, the degree of risk epending on the drug, dosage, circumstances and individual charcteristics. On what basis is the individual to decide whether the risk is n acceptable one and whether the benefits he perceives are approriate? Is there a line on the continuum where it is appropriate for her institutions to intervene to stop the behavior, or should the inividual be completely free to choose? To answer these questions reires coming to terms with fundamental questions of the purpose and eaning of life. In this sphere of discourse, the moral counsel of the ligious community is indispensable.

Another important issue is the role of drug use in the pursuit of rsonal happiness. Drugs are used for recreational as well as selfedication purposes. With the exception of alcohol and tobacco, society s formally condemned the use of drugs for personal pleasure; yet any individuals take other drugs recreationally without apparent rm to themselves or others. On what moral grounds, then, do we ndemn this behavior?

Public discussion has only recently begun on the question of guidees for the appropriate and inappropriate use of alcohol. The scope this discussion should be expanded to include other drugs as well. e participation of the religious community will aid in resolving the oral ambiguities involved.

There are also moral questions surrounding the exploration of conousness. Western culture has stressed rational analysis and synthesis the most valid form of experience and denigrated other forms of nsciousness, such as the drug-induced "high." Yet the heritage of all - world's major religions is rich with the experiences of prophets, rs, saints and mystics. The religious community thus has a strong erest, as well as the moral basis, for exploring altered states of conousness and evaluating the perceptions and insights which result.

directed spiritual experience. Users of hallucinogenic drugs have reported religious or mystical experiences. These experiences cannot be dismissed simply by dogmatic refusal to examine the evidence; instead, both theologians and scientists must look at them closely. The mystical tradition of the religious community should offer valuable insight and guidance on the nature and value of such experiences.

These four issues in the realm of private moral choice clearly indicate that the religious community must reassert its counseling role regarding behavior with moral overtones. Equally important is religion's role in promoting non-drug alternatives in coping behavior. Non-medical drug use in any form is not essential to living. The religious community's understanding of self and community, of freedom and responsibility, of love and hope offer positive guidance to individuals in their quest for values and for a meaningful life style which enables them to cope without use of drugs.

Finally, the Commission notes that the institutional network of religious bodies can serve as part of the preventive early warning system which the Commission is stressing. Local congregations have the most direct access to families of any of our social institutions. With appropriate training, clergy and lay religious leaders can work with parents and children with drug-use problems. Some congregations are doing this now, and the work should be greatly expanded.

THE FAMILY

The private institution with the greatest potential for positive impact on youthful drug use is the family. Yet, society's preference for formal intervention has long minimized the role of the family as a force. We believe that any future policies regarding drug use and drug dependence must include the family as an integral part of the response.

In order to equip the family for its future role, society must understand the family's current impact and find ways to maintain and, in many cases, redirect that impact.

In a variety of ways, the drug problem is grounded in family experience, even the experience of stable and intact middle class families. Attitudes which lead to drug-using behavior may begin with values which parents intend to teach their children: an interest in new experience, a desire for pleasant and relaxing forms of leisure, a certain degree of independence in ideas and actions. In addition to these healthy attitudes, however, adults also expose children to inconsistent and arbitrary rules about the use of psychoactive substances. Too often, parents and other adults disapprove use of tobacco, alcohol and pills only in words. They assume either that children do not experience their own stress, excitement, and depression or that childhood experience of these feelings does not merit pharmacological intervention. Finally,

adult society bombards children with incomplete or inadequate information about which drugs are safe or dangerous, helpful or harmful, good or bad.

The family will continue to shape both attitudes and behavior about drug use. The issue, then, is how. Family responses to drug use need redirection toward honesty, consistency, and sensitivity. Just as the bearing and raising of children must not be left to chance, neither should parental influence concerning drug use.

Among the guiding principles of parental conduct, the first should be recognition that their patterns of drug use (or non-use) serve as a model for their children. Repeated studies have indicated a strong correlation between the degree of responsibility exercised by the parents in using drugs and that exercised by the children (Louria, 1971). The second principle is that curiosity and the search for experience is a normal aspect of the adolescent growth process. Experimentation with drugs is properly disapproved, but parents should understand that youthful curiosity is generally a desirable motivation, which they should fashion and encourage.

Third, parents must concentrate on discouraging initial drug use; oo often, parental concern is generated only after use has begun. Moreover, the family's preventive functions is not limited to forestallng drug use. It should also include attempts to deal with the entire pectrum of adolescent needs.

Finally, parents must assume primary responsibility for the detecion of and response to drug use by their child. Too often parents have bdicated their responsibility to institutions, such as schools. These nstitutions, in turn, tend to act in loco parentis and try to remedy the hild's difficulties, including drug use and drug-related behavior, withut involving the family. When this happens, any problems in family ructure are only aggravated. Parents must serve as the treatment gency of first resort, and if they decide that referral to professional ervices is necessary, they must participate actively with the program person which provides these services.

In order to provide a basis for open discussions and interchanges etween parent and child regarding use of psychoactive substances, a imate of honesty, mutual respect and love must be fostered within e family. Since rational discussion about drugs is impossible without formed attitudes and perceptions, parents must learn to discuss ugs, their effects, and drug-related behavior without hysteric emoon. Parents should share information with their children, in order provide a common factual basis.

Although such discussions may not always lead to a resolution satisctory to both parent and child, they should continue nonetheless in der to avoid a breakdown in communications. At the minimum, the scussion can lead to mutual self-respect and prevent the kinds of sunderstanding which only further cloud the central issues.

chapter five looking ahead

The Commission sought to achieve two major objectives. First, have called for change in common conceptions and definitions of ag use. In the first three Chapters, we outlined a systematic way of king at drug use and its social consequences. Second, we have tried design a process by which policy can be rationally formulated. In previous Chapter we applied that process, focusing on the utility the present system. Now we must move beyond the present system, icipating the direction of policy in the future.

n important and recurrent theme of this Report has been our belief contemporary public attitudes toward drugs and their users tend be inconsistent and founded on many misconceptions. One parpant in the Commission-sponsored Salk Institute Seminar on Soal Features of Repetitive Drug Use observed:

nother common societal reaction to drug use is oversimplification the inherently complicated issues. This response is illustrative of an's remarkable penchant for excessively reducing ambiguity, for rcing a graded spectrum of differences into a dichotomy of black white, and for producing stereotypes and artificial categories. ese efforts to reduce ambiguity and complexity are especially aprent in emotionally laden areas such as the use of drugs where for