Okay, here's where I'm coming from.
I had several friends in College take up "the chronic". I watched them go from straight A students to apathetic losers who only cared about their next smoke.
I have worked with several individuals who were chronic weed smokers. They all worried more about their next "hit" than job performance. One coworker went to a family reunion in Tenn, and died of a heroin OD while partying with brothers and cousins.
I had several cousins who turned into alcoholics. And none of them had ever taken a drink before legal age. A couple of them turned into hard core drug addicts later in life.
I lost one Son in Law to alcoholism and eventual suicide. He left a twelve year old daughter behind. But he was an alcoholic by the age of fifteen.
At age forty my pard and hunting buddy married a gal who was into meth. He became a serious addict within a year, and I had to cull him from my life.
And every one of these losers loudly denounce any efforts by .gov to control the sale or traffic of drugs. They call drugs a victimless vice. Yet who pays for their disability, welfare, food stamps, energy assistance, childcare, and medicaid when they become indigent?
And yes alcoholism is just as serious a problem in this nation as is drug abuse. But obviously prohibition was not the answer.
I just know that I do not want to share the road or the workplace with anyone intoxicated with any substance.
Someone, anyone, please tell me what the answer is.
Personally, I think it needs to start in the school yard. Kids all know if they get caught using or dealing, they will just get their knuckles rapped.
If everyone of those kids knew someone who had been executed for participating in the drug trade, they would understand drugs are serious business.
I_S,
I grew up at a time our high school had the third largest number of drug arrests in the State of California. Many for "dealing".
While not execution, penalties at that time were pretty severe, especially for a high schooler. Even given that most juveniles were not prosecuted as adults at the time, who wants to spend from 17 to 25 in the State system of Juvenile Correction?
Yet, it didn't stop folks from selling drugs at school or before or after.
Sorry I don't know the answer, but as others have pointed out...................prohibition ain't working either.
Geno
