Drugs, pharmaceutical, recreational, street drugs, societies have been taking them through the ages at one time or another. In recent times, I have had to take pain killers and have enjoyed the calming affect on severe pain they have offered. Seems okay and perfectly alright when they are prescribed for pain you are exhibiting of very painful things happening to your body.
When younger, I knew people who took drugs recreationally, when it was the thing to do at dance parties. Ecstasy just hit the streets and lot's of people were taking them to get you to that place on a Saturday night at the latest dance party or rave in a location you had no previous knowledge of ever existing within your city limits. It seemed okay, we were young and that's what the young were doing at that time. It wasn't often for most people, it was just on those big occasions,you didn't need the feeling 24x7, only when the occasion called for an extra boost, or liftoff to make it a memorable night.
Now, for instance a friend's son, who is at this age and the friend is now experiencing what it must have been like for their parents, the worry if your kids are taking drugs or not, but it's a little different now. Now you know what they are doing, now it's a little more open with your child, if you are lucky, the dialogue of what they are doing, what they are taking when they go out to a club or an event. When they say they are taking ecstasy tabs into a big event, you think okay, be careful, try not to get caught, but they don't really want to listen.
You are still young, you say to them, what about if you get caught now, it means a criminal record, if you have a conviction against your name, that could be a bad thing. You might never be able to travel to certain countries, or find work there. Certain career choices might not be available to you, all for a quick thrill with legally outlawed substances that have penalties associated with their use and carriage upon person.
They (the kid's) know the risk they are taking and are still prepared to take this risk, unlike in our days of Hordern dance parties and raves which weren't policed, today they are. Drug sniffing dogs, police outside and inside venues, venue staff working with the police to tip them off. This all conspires to make the journey for our youth through these experimental times, much harder than it appeared or was for us.
What's strange about this, is with all this knowledge and all these risks, the kids are still doing it, despite all the warning's crackdowns, even instances of where their friends have been caught with harsh consequences. I don't think it's unique to us here in Australia either, but perhaps our young are paying harsher penalties for experimentation. How do drugs still get taken at these venues, how do they beat the sniffer dogs and searches? Is it a case of just sheer penetration of numbers of people taking them into these venues that they can't catch everyone of them. The kids are smart too, they get their girlfriends to wrap them up and put them you know where to beat the sniffer dogs. Is it just a token presence the police are giving at the venues and even they know they won't really be able to do much against it, catch the odd drug dealer and they are happy with those kind of results.
I would be happier obviously if we moved away from this drug, drinking culture that we have found ourselves in these days. I think you have to be careful when you make these blanket statements though, I think it's worse in certain age groups and even worse in some cities, in some Ice has crippled communities. It's hard, it really is, how did we get ourselves to this point, drugs cost and then they cost some more, on the people who take them and on society as a whole. Has the crackdown policing worked, or have things gotten worse?
On some level, I hope and trust that my friends son, is/was like the generation before and just going through a phase, a time or passage, that he is smart enough to navigate his way through successfully and not get caught or punished. He has some awareness, as does his dad and I have some awareness of what he is going through. We all went through the same kind of stuff. His father is there for him, and an example in a way to him, he got through and he's okay, a fully functioning adult, with no dependencies on drugs or alcohol. I really thought it would be easier by now and I am surprised to find it's not in a way, it's harder for kids and teenagers now, the same as us though, they don't open up too readily (these boys) so it's hard to gauge how prevalent it is right now amongst their peers.
In our circle of friends and their kids, we already know 2 kids of friends that have been caught with more than 1 or 2 tablets and they risk very harsh penalties and a criminal record.
In a positive way we are more open about this sort of thing and there is much more information about everything, yet at the same time there is more of a crackdown and criminalisation of it, which is out of whack when applied to all teenagers, who all seem to be doing, just what some of us did, nothing more (apart from ice), which is on the rise again.
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