Legalizing Hard Drugs Part 2
Vices are destructive but we obviously live in a country where one can partake and hopefully suffer the consequences without infringing on another’s quality of life. I wholly believe that individuals react to these vices in varying degrees. One may become addicted and one may not become addicted to any particular vice be it drugs, alcohol, rampant sex, gambling or what ever would qualify as an addiction. An addiction consumes one’s life and consequently has the ability to destroy many facets of that life.
I’d like to address illegal drugs in particular and leave out the consumption of alcohol, the viewing of or engagement in porn or the practice of gambling because those are legal and there is not a question today regarding those activities.
Now here is where I get a little personal. Had that person, who is very close to me; not got caught up in the illegal drug trade where his very life was threatened; as was the life of his sister and her children; by an unscrupulous dealer; would that person still be a sleeping under my roof and bringing joy to my person? This is not the case as this person, who is very close to me, finds himself incarcerated for 70 months due to an activity he carried out indirectly related to the situation in which he found himself. Had these illicit drugs been legal would this scenario unfolded in an identical manner? I would venture to say, no. We have all at one time or another said, "if I was in charge...", and we’d banter on about how we would do one thing or another. If I was in charge, drugs would be legal and under the control of the government. Those dealing outside of the system would receive life sentences. You know there is no competing with the government as the government doesn’t like competition when it comes to it’s dastardly deeds. Those who choose to be users would need to be removed from the everyday public life. Users would not have the opportunity to hold up the outside walls of the local JC Penney or fertilize the plants that grow in the parks. Can they re-enter public life ever? Yes, after a pre-determined length of being clean. I guess one right I would take away is the right to have or adopt children, This would be common knowledge drilled into the heads of citizens just like the Pledge of Allegiance. The collateral damage suffered by the children of and families of users is too great. Now, I’ve never been an addict of anything. I smoked cigarettes some during my college years but could take them or leave them just like that and never have an unquenchable craving to light one up. Some may argue that I have no right to be expounding on this subject as I have never been addicted. Well, guess what? I am collateral damage. My son, that person, is a drug addict. And that fact pisses the bloody hell right out of me. I can carry on about how he was not raised that way and he grew up in a good family and blah, blah, blah. Drugs are a pervasive malady among our young people. In my letter to the judge I was asked to write in defense of my son, I wrote about the high school seniors who just had to show the underclassman the finer points of smoking a doobie. Damn! He started smoking marijuana in 10th grade. He was recruited to play college football and I believe started experimenting with more interesting concoctions when he was 19 or 20. He is now 21 and incarcerated for the next 70 months. Oh joy! I recall him saying that he was lead to believe that he could pay for a rather expensive summer college course by becoming some sort of a delivery person for illegal substances. He got mugged, illegal substances stolen and no money for that bigger fish. Crap! One thing lead to another and he committed the crime that got him locked up.
Now would that still be a true and accurate story if drugs were made legal? I suppose it could be a much worse story with him serving a life sentence for dealing, (or as I like to say 'delivery person’) or it could be that the consequences for this behavior (dealing) is so harsh he would have chose to steer clear. I don’t effing know the answer. I do know that drugs aren’t going away and that just being a human means that one is prone to falling victim to the grips of cocaine, meth, heroin. One must take a hard and determined stance to not partake in this activity. I could walk out my front door, walk down the street and change my life forever if I so chose. RMG
This piece was originally written 06/16/2017
