LETTER

More on drug epidemic

 

I chuckled reading the latest letter from Steve d'Eça in the Aylmer Bulletin, March 8, 2017. He's naively suggesting that parents, schools, hospitals, border patrol, etc., need to "pull up their socks" to help eliminate the latest drug epidemic known as the Fentanyl Crisis, without considering the causes.

Young people want and need to take risks to grow towards independence. Drugs are cool to teenagers, and no denying of that fact will change it. My own teenage years were filled with experimentation, including excessive alcohol, minor use of LSD, mescaline and cocaine; I, and most friends, found a comfort zone using hashish or pot, finding the other "escapes", including alcohol, too extreme.  Prescription medications, known as "roofies, uppers or downers", usually stolen from a parents' stash, brought unnatural feelings and side-effects; these were easily dismissed by most of us as unhealthy!

Since the mid 1980's, and the US's ill-conceived "War on Drugs", a generation of us was allowed to grow up knowing that governments are completely out of touch by listing marijuana with the hard drugs, like heroin. Finally, that will all soon be put to rest by Canada modernizing its drug laws and making marijuana legal.

His letter suggests that young people are being targeted for drug indoctrination. Yes, but by Big Tobacco and corporations pushing caffeine with "energy" drink campaigns! Studies show it is family first, then friends, who introduce others most often. Hospitals and schools are terribly burdened, and these are places drugs are most available! To "nip the problem in the bud", perhaps Mr d'Eça is suggesting parents smoke some "bud" with their soon-to-be adult children. I hope so.

My first thoughts around this crisis occurred last autumn and I remember thinking how fortunate we are to have safe injection sites so that counsellors and social workers could be gathering information on the latest drug trends and issues.

It is perplexing that some young people are still willing to be such risk-takers, knowing now that the consequences can be fatal!  We can expect more excessive behaviour and risk-taking as we continue towards a less tolerant and less democratic society.  I have met one of these unfortunate teens and I will agree with one of Steve's main points:  Fentanyl drug traffickers must be held accountable and manslaughter charges should be considered whenever appropriate.

Joseph Golding
Aylmer