I reluctantly watch the news most evenings knowing there are bound to be some reports of a drug bust somewhere and/or a medical report of some young/older person dying of an overdose. For an old man that has never had a drug problem other than smoking when I was in my teens. That was bad enough, but in my day it was hard to find some adult who did not smoke, so naturally, teens want to appear adult. Fortunately, when I was nineteen and a military policeman in the Army. My training and expectation was that I be in excellent condition and I could tell by my being winded even during short jogs let alone flat out running, that was often required, during some of our training. That’s when I decided to quit smoking after eight years of it. I was successful but only after many tries, I often brag sometimes, and say after 30 tries but I don’t actually believe it was that many. According to the new’s and other reports, we commonly hear, it seems that a great number of people are doing drugs of one kind or another in these days. Young people are taken in by challenges by other youth and before they know it they are hooked. There is a TV series called “Cops” and I will watch that once in awhile and there are as many adults pulled over for driving under the influence as there are young people, and drugs are as frequently the problem as is alcohol. The drugs the kids/adults are using today definitely have that capability to incapacitate. I really quite enjoyed the following anecdote as it very well could have come from my own mouth.
“The other day, a man standing next to me at a store in our small town read that a meth lab had been found in an old farmhouse in the adjoining county, and he asked me a rhetorical question…
“Why didn’t we have a drug problem when you and I were growing up”?
I told him I did have a drug problem when I was a kid growing up.
I was drug to church on Sunday…morning and night.
I was drug to church for weddings and funerals.
I was drug to family reunions and community socials no matter the weather.
I was drug by my ears when I was disrespectful to adults.
I was also drug upstairs to my room or the woodshed when I disobeyed my parents, told a lie, brought home a bad report card, did not speak with respect, spoke ill of the teacher or the preacher. Or if I didn’t put forth my best effort in everything that was asked of me.
I was drug to the kitchen sink if I uttered a profane four-letter word or smoked a cigarette (I do know what soap tastes like).
I was drug out to pull weeds in mom’s garden and flowerbeds and to clear cockleburs out of dad’s fields.
I was drug to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors to help out some poor soul who had no one to mow the yard, repair the clothesline or chop some firewood, and if my mother had ever known that I took a single dime as a tip for this kindness, she would have drug me back to the woodshed.
Those drugs are still in my veins; and they affect my behavior in everything I do, say, and think. They are stronger than cocaine, crack or heroin, and if today’s children had this kind of drug problem, America would be a better place to live today.
—Author unknown
Kids today need to be drug around like we were and if they were we could read the paper without all that ugly news and the problems related to the kind of “drugs” being used today. Yes, the drug problem is epidemic in parts of our country, because drugs are pouring across the border with open borders as they are. We do need a wall and more tools to stop the trafficking as well as harsher punishments for those who benefit by their sale and use. Once innocent children are overdosing (dying) every day to the devastation of their families. President Obama released thousands of drug-related prisoners from prison just recently because he said it was not a violent crime. It is a violent crime in the hearts and minds of those who have lost and are losing their children to the drug trade. Maybe the President doesn’t think drug use is criminal but we have to ask the question; How do the addicted pay for their drugs which may cost several hundred dollars a week or month. The answer is, they steal, they rob, they prostitute their bodies or whatever else they can do to satisfy their habit. I don’t believe our new President will have the same feeling about drug users and drug abusers.
Parents need to have a better knowledge about where their children are and what they are doing before it is too late. They need to start drugging them to church and other appropriate places as we were as children. That kind of drugging may be hard to do but it may save their lives. God bless our young people.