It amazes me how dominant drugs are in our society. Their everywhere and it seems like people would rather turn their heads and try to pretend that their friends and family are not smoking weed, popping pills or shooting up heroin than facing the facts and addressing the issue. In the meantime these people are literally killing themselves while their friends and family stand back and watch. It amazes me how many of my friends eventually ended up doing drugs like heroin, meth and cocaine when they were brought up no differently than me. It's not like we're living in the ghetto here in Salt Lake, it's not like every day you walk out the door you have to worry about getting shot or making a few dollars somehow so your family won't starve that evening. Instead we're mostly a bunch of stuck up, spoiled kids that had nothing but everything going for them. I know a bunch of these people personally and many of them since we were kids, so I know their history, I know what they've been through and I know that they have no excuse to be in the position they are in now. So why is it that so many of my good friends have ended up where they are now? I blame it on two things:
1. Self Responsibility. Too often in this day in age you can't do anything wrong. Instead it's always someone elses fault. We take kids into counseling and convince them that they have mental problems and that is the reason they started smoking weed with their friends, or that they were really depressed because mom and dad got divorced and shouldn't be held accountable for giving into the peer pressure of doing drugs because the stress of the divorce was just too much. At what point do we just come out and say "There are no excuses, you knew this was wrong and now you're going to pay for it."? It's not just this way with kids either. Anytime you watch the news the pedophile raped the little girl because he too was raped as a kid, or the smack addict who assulted an old lady and stole her purse did it because he had a horrible childhood. We need to start holding people responsible for thier actions and punish them accordingly. We also need to start doing this at a much younger age than 18. If a 13 year old kid spent a few days in jail, than had to do a bunch of community service all while being grounded at home, they might think twice about smoking weed again. Instead most kids realize that if they get caught smoking, their probably going to get a small fine and get yelled at by mom and dad, if that.
2. Weed. Every single one of my friends that have moved onto heroin, speed, cocaine, pills, etc. have all started with one drug, and that drug was weed. EVERY single one. Coincidence? I've never smoked weed, and I've never done any of the drugs listed above. Weed desensitizes you to drugs. Most people are extreamly nervous about smoking weed for the first time because their whole life they've been brought up being told that it was illigal and you'd go to jail if you ever did it, but once your sitting in a room with a bunch of pot heads that have been smoking weed for years now, you begin to realize that theres not a whole lot anyone can do. No one is going to find out, and these people aren't dropping dead like the movies said they would. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Once you pass that step, I belive you overcome a big hurdle. After that first smoke or two, all the sudden you start thinking of pot as a common and easy to get drug, not the evil, horrible, killer of a drug that your parents had made it out to be all those years. After that it's much easier to move on to a little coke maybe, after all, you've been smoking weed for all these years, your kinda bored of it and you've been seeing a lot of other people doing coke around you with no conciquences. So you do a little coke, and it keeps going from there. I've seen it happen a bunch of times. Again, I don't know one, not one person that has done heroin, or any other high level drug that hadn't stared out smoking pot. That is not a coincidence.
Anyway, I was just thinking about all of this because I just got a call from one of our old friends Dave. He was looking for my friend Jon who's in rehab for heroin right now. From what I hear, he himself has been doing quite a bit of heroin also and I could hear it in his voice. He sounded a lot different than he did only a few months ago. I have personally known 3 or 4 people who have almost died from the drugs they were doing. I know a lot more who have ruined their lives and relationships with their friends and family, and one of my girlfriends old friends just died from heroin. I'm sure it will never end, there really is no way to stop drugs fully. As long as people want to do them, they'll be available and there's nothing anyone can do about that. What we need to do is find a way to convince people that they really don't want them. Until then, I'll keep an eye on the obituaries.
