THE story on the front page of The Northern Echo yesterday about a senior manager at Aycliffe Young People's Centre taking cannabis while on holiday appalled me.

My feelings were nothing to do with the example this person sets to some of the most troubled children in the country - what she gets up to in her spare time is absolutely nothing to do with me.

What appalled me was the comment from a local councillor at the bottom of the story. In support of the centre worker, he said: "Cannabis is one of these soft drugs and figures suggest 40 per cent of young people use it at some time."

Cannabis is not a soft drug. In fact, there is no such thing as a soft drug. Even tobacco is not a soft drug because it kills thousands of people a year. Alcohol cannot be a soft drug because it ruins countless lives and causes countless deaths.

All drugs are hard, in terms of the damage they do, although I will accept that some drugs are harder than others.

The use of this phrase "soft drugs" must stop. The more people see it and hear it, the more they will become accustomed to "soft drugs" being around them.

The phrase is usually used by those wishing to legalise cannabis. They use it because it makes this drug sound more acceptable. "Soft drugs" sound comfortable, cosy, warming, harmless...

But no drugs are. We have given too much ground to criminals and criminality over the years and, because 40 per cent of people choose to break the law, it doesn't mean we have to give any more ground.

THERE. I've got that off my chest. But another story in The Northern Echo this week also annoyed me. On Tuesday, it was reported that "Whitehall insiders" think Labour may introduce toll charges on motorways - notably the Western by-pass around Newcastle - if re-elected.

There might be some merit in tolls. They might drive people out of their cars and so help the environment; they might help reduce congestion; they might provide some money for improving our transport system. They might also drive all the cars off the motorways and onto the side streets.

What annoyed me most about this story was that the Labour Party neither dismissed it nor supported it. In less than two months time, there will be an election. Don't we, the voters, have a right to know what the party we are likely to elect is going to do?

It reminded me of something I heard during the "Metric Martyr" trial. The judge said, at the referendum of 1972, people had no idea what they were voting for. They thought it was just a common market but, 30 years down the line, the ramifications are only just being understood.

If we'd been treated honestly then, there wouldn't be so much hostility to Europe today. Labour should learn from this.

ON a lighter note, I was this week embroiled in an argument between two friends. One had just been to see the Moscow City Ballet in Newcastle - her first trip to the ballet, and she enjoyed it so much she will go again. The other was a Sunderland supporter.

"The ballet?" roared the Sunderland supporter when he heard. "How sad!" "It's no sadder than going to the Stadium of Light every week!" came the reply.

I kept out of it, but I was reminded of a line in the Billy Elliot film where the young star defends his love of dancing by simply saying that he enjoys it like others enjoy football and intends to keep on doing it.

That film has, to a certain extent, put ballet on the ordinary person's cultural map. My friends and I would have regarded it as sad, elitist prancing (they must put shuttlecocks down their tights!) but now I know people who are starting to go. I have to admit that even I am tempted - and I intend to drag my Sunderland-supporting friend along, too.

Published: Thursday, March 19, 2001