Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Politics Of Addiction
Several years ago, two ten year old boys walked to the Stella Tirrell Park to play catch and maybe get to watch a Cranberry League baseball game. They were budding baseball stars themselves and loved to watch the older guys play and maybe pick up some pointers. They weren’t supervised by any adult, which was not unusual, because there were plenty of people around watching the game and Stella Tirrell was a safe place to play. Their game of catch was interrupted by an older boy, maybe sixteen, who asked if they were interested in trying some “pot”. One boy immediately refused, while the other more “adventurous” boy actually seemed intrigued by the offer. The “smarter” boy won out, despite the 16 year old’s persistence and the boys left.
When they arrived back at their respective homes, both boys told their parents about the incident. The smarter boy’s father immediately forbade the boy from, not only going to that park again without an adult, but he would not allow him to play with the other boy any more, due to his adventurous nature. The adventurous boy’s father went down to the park with his son, to identify the “dope-smoker” to no avail. In the process he spoke at length with the boy about the numerous pitfalls in life, not the least of which is substance abuse. The lesson would be further reinforced through the Town Of Weymouth’s D.A.R.E. organization, which was a high profile, Police Department backed, drug awareness program conducted throughout the school system. The adventurous boy even became somewhat friendly with Officer Bowen, who ran the D.A.R.E. program, helping him teach younger children about drug addiction.
The boys remained friends and went on to college and the smarter boy even played college baseball. The adventurous boy, always wanting to experiment, eventually smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, but he was ever aware of their allure and kept a respectful distance from over-indulgence. One day, the smart boy slid into second base and something happened to his knee. The knee unfortunately would require surgery, and therapy, and drugs, and at some point the smart boy, who wouldn’t smoke pot, became addicted to Oxy-Contin. He stopped playing baseball, stopped going to school and started stealing from his parents, to support his habit. Eventually, his broken hearted father got the boy into a drug rehabilitation program and the boy, now a man, lives day to day with an addiction.
The saddest part is that both boys have the same problem. The concern for them is that it is never over. The smart boy now knows what the adventurous boy learned long ago. That at any point the casual drink can become a consistent habit, the hit off one joint can become an addiction to other drugs, and the medication prescribed by a doctor can become a dependence. Drugs are around all of us every day and although we’re taught they are bad, even the strongest of us can slip into the cycle of addiction. There is no specific lesson to be learned or program to experience that will save us. Heroin is not an inner-city problem, alcoholism is not a blue collar problem, and marijuana is not a youth problem. These are world problems.
Within a mile of anyone in America, there is access to any drug; on any street, there is access to marijuana and your next door neighbor is probably an alcoholic. You can choose to turn a blind eye to that fact but be forewarned, there is no escape, and we are all trapped. You cannot be protected from it by others, you must educate yourself about it and face it, head on. Do you think because you’ve never had a beer or smoked a jay that you are not trapped by the allure of drugs? Any policeman will tell you that most crime is committed by people on drugs or craving drugs. Medical costs are out of control because of drugs, vehicle accidents are caused by drugs, accidents in the work-place are caused by drugs, domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, and you name it. If you dig deep enough into a cause for these tragedies of society, then you will more often than not, discover that drug dependency was their root cause. Drug addicts are not the spawn of other drug addicts, they are all of us, athlete, celebrity, doctor, lawyer, policeman, Senator, President.
So yes, the methadone van in Weymouth is more popular than ever and the urban scourge known as heroin has come to suburbia; and no more than 5 years after dropping the D.A.R.E. program, a different politician will give drug abuse some lip service and prevent Weymouth from “becoming a safe haven for drug dealers” by putting money back into the police department to fight drugs. And yes, the Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator will still get her $100,000 supplement each year from the federal government to let everyone know that we should eat dinner together and be afraid of liquor stores, while drug overdose fatalities in Weymouth triple the state average.
Do we need a narcotics division in the police department? Absolutely. Do the police need to crack down on underage drinking? Absolutely. We also need an active presence of police in schools, drug and alcohol training throughout the schools, police and fire departments, and guess what else? Random drug testing throughout all departments and schools, even children. You wanna have a war on drugs? Get off the political bandwagon. How about that for a political hot potato?
POSTED BY STAN at April 23, 2009
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