FINDING A SILVER LINING IN A BLEAK CIRCUMSTANCE

Ours is an increasingly complex world, and even as you try your best to fend off the known perils of daily existence, a recognition grows that just identifying the threats becomes a challenge. Our grasp of this was unsettled a bit last week with a local tragedy. And while we dislike viewing disturbing things on anything other than their own terms, we reach for silver linings where we can and accept hard lessons as we must.

Authorities in Jackson and Cape Girardeau County linked a 13-year-old girl's death with her possible involvement in inhaling the fumes from spray paint cans. Some evidence exists, including accounts from the girl's friends, that teen-agers were breathing these bottled gases in order to get a high. According to local experts, inhalation of these fumes can create a quick, intense high, but this activity does extraordinary damage to brain cells and can be addictive.

Unfortunately, young people are often the ones who get caught up in this destructive enterprise, partly because they might enjoy the risk of experimentation but mostly because the products are available to satisfy their curiosity. Few households are without an aerosol container that can accommodate this unhealthy euphoria. We can't expect retail stores who trade in these products to take responsibility for the dangerous uses they are put to. Their accessibility will not diminish.

In this region, our school systems and many private organizations affiliated with them have done an exemplary job of alerting young people to the dangers of substance abuse. From a tender age on, children are given facts about how alcohol and drugs can destroy life. Youngsters are more knowledgeable than ever about the perils inherent to these pursuits. When a 13-year-old dies of accidental asphyxiation, and inhalation of spray paint fumes is involved, it hits us out of the blue. The least we can do, faced with lamentable circumstances, is expand our base of understanding, acknowledge that the threat is out there and provide the education and guidance to counter it.

Though the point to sometimes hard to transmit to young people (and many older people, for that matter), there are plenty of highs available in this life that aren't induced through destructive means. Let us hope now we are a little wiser about one of life's dangers. If anything good ever comes of tragedy, it is that our resolve is strengthened to never see it happen again.