I live in a drug-ruined community, seven- or eight-year-olds already smoke marijuana regularly (I smoked my first joint at twelve). Heroin is as easy to get as a pint of milk at the local store. Crack, Cocaine, Ecstasy, LSD, you ask for it and it can be delivered to your door in minutes, and this only for illegal substances, prescription drugs are even more problematic. It is the Valium practically common in these places, stimulants, tranquilizers, antipsychotic antidepressants, painkillers, morphine, methadone, you choose, there is a market for all this. We are dealing with an epidemic of prescription drugs in Niddrie (actually across our country) and very few people seem to notice or care about it.
The results are there for everyone. Young men and women, who sell their bodies for sex, steal from their parents, grandparents and neighbors to find a quick solution to their addictions. Children from the age of five used as mules, violent crime and bullying are part of the routine, robberies, suicide, chronic depression and a whole host of mental health problems and, most importantly, murder . For many, the war on drugs is lost and government policy must act on “prevention. ” Marijuana is now apparently? Medicinal? ? an argument that I hear being ridiculously used by all the users I know here in the community. Apparently, according to some “experts”, there is little or no evidence that marijuana is a “front door”, a route to harder drugs, although all the users I know, without exception, have started their addiction by trying marijuana . I’m not sure who is responsible for all the alleged statistics on this, but let me say that these folks have never spent more than five minutes in a social housing community for people in need.
- The government’s current formula for combating heroin addiction is to treat it with some form of combination of Valium.
- Methadone.
- Sleeping pills.
- Antipsychotics and antidepressants.
- Let me be clear: methadone is not medicinal.
- In my opinion.
- Methadone and valium are much more addictive.
- And cause more long-term health problems than many of the so-called illicit drugs.
- Then why do people do that? Here are some reasons:.
The scare tactics of the past (?Just say?NO?!) They have no influence on the current generation. Drug use, especially in the early years, is usually very pleasant (and we should stop pretending it isn’t) and have nice benefits, including:
Problems arise over time, with long-term abuse, and can lead to a wide variety of problems, including:
Social consequences can be extremely devastating, including
Of course, there are many more consequences than these, as a rule, drug addicts are liars, manipulators and hard-line cheaters, almost without exception, middle-class Christians, in particular, hate when I say this, but they are vulnerable to all kinds of abuse by some of the characters I’ve dealt with here, who?shed tears as soon as they realize they can make a quick profit. Are churches and Christians easy targets? for addicts because they quickly learn to handle the “language of believers,” what to say and when to say it, and many Christians, in their naive aspiration for “ministry,” often ignoring all this, end up involved in a gigantic journey.
So what can we do with drug addicts and chronic liars?What does the Bible say about these topics?Fifteen years ago, you robbed every member of your family, you’re blacklisted from every store in town, and you come to our door crying?
Find out soon in Part 2
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Note: This article was originally published on 28/02/2013.