Misusing drugs, whether the legal or illegal kinds, is a bad thing. We adults know that. But how about our children?

Anybody who has ever had a child knows that there are times you can talk until you are blue in the face and will never have the desired impact on that young mind.

So how does one get a point across, especially a point as important as convincing children to avoid drugs at all costs?

Well, you don’t talk down to them, and you don’t yell and scream at them – you do it with things that they can understand and relate to on their own level.

That’s why a recent visit to Nansemond Parkway Elementary School by one of the most popular super heroes ever known to childkind was a good idea.

Spiderman came, dressed in his work attire, carrying some of those really neat crime-fighting tools he has, and told the kids how bad drugs really are.

And the interesting thing about it is that those youngsters listened. And we hope, because we can only hope, that Spidey got his message across.

If you listened to the comments from some of those in attendance, it looks like they were listening and paying attention.

We say kudos to the Suffolk school officials who planned, organized and approved this program. And we hope there are many more just like it to come.

There are many adults and older children out there who are abusing drugs right now, and until they are ready to seek help and stop – they won’t.

The easiest way to keep a person from becoming a drug addict is to have them never start in the first place.

And the best time to get to these people and put them on the right track is when they are young, when their little brains are like a lump of clay that can be molded into any shape and form. Just ask an elementary school teacher how pliable those little gray matters are. It’s the same reason that a child has an easier time learning a foreign language than an adult does.

We need to attack the drug problem at the youngest of the young and convince them that using and abusing drugs is not the right way.

And no matter how much it costs, it will always be cheaper than losing one more child to the evils of drugs.

Again, our hat is off to the school officials for their insight.