Posted on 10/29/2007 9:11:27 AM PDT by 60Gunner
I saw a woman at the store near my house last Wednesday morning after I got off work. The moment I saw the woman, I knew she was on Meth. Her face was covered with black sores; she was pale, scrawny, dirty, and absolutely wild-eyed. She was practically dancing in place. Her speech was a jumble of pressured and confused babble; her movements were grandiose and repetitive. She constantly rearranged the items she placed on the checkout counter. At one point she looked right at me. Her expression was chilling.
She managed to pay for her groceries, but then loitered outside the entrance, pacing back and forth and mumbling to herself. She approached one or two people outside. I told the clerk to call the police. They would probably haul her to a local ER and dump her there, and the ER wouldn't really be able to do anything for her but watch her, but at least she wouldn't run into traffic or assault someone.
When people are 'cranked,' they seem to suffer a total disruption of reality. The laws of physics and of cause-and-effect seem to be suspended for them. They're stolen away to a kind of 'parallel universe.' On their side of reality, they race unfettered at light speed and are bombarded from every direction with pure stimuli; yet on this side of reality, their bodies literally fall apart from neglect and abuse. They are animated rotting corpses. They are real-life zombies. They are the living dead.
Yet because they still exist (the word 'live' no longer applies for their hell on earth) in our reality, they carry along with them the attachments of the people who love them. They are still somebody to somebody else: somebody's daughter, son, brother, sister, mother, father, husband, or wife. And we can only watch in powerless horror as our loved one is stolen away from us and, day by day, cut by cut, over months and years, butchered and left to decompose before our eyes.
This is Meth. This is what it does to us. Why have we as a society allowed our leaders and law enforcement agencies to pussy-foot around with this?
Take meth dealers out to the street and shoot them? (Some of us are tempted)
Give any addict a pound / 20 gallons of whatever is their poison of choice and a private room? Then collect the bodies later?
Lock them away 'for their own good'?
I have worked with the street inebriates in Anchorage - most seem to be a case of slow suicide - they have already given up on themselves. Didn't have an answer then, don't have one now.
A problem of the ages, just seems we have a lot more of the problem today than even just 10 years ago....
It was fine as a public reply.
Yes, I do, but most people, being confronted with an obviously addicted drug addict, say to themselves, "This isn't my problem. Someone should do something.", and go on about their day unless the addict impinges on their personal space in some way.
To most people the addict is NOT a human being, they're just another drug addict who got themselves involved in something they shouldn't have.
Not many think to themselves, "There, but for the Grace of God, go I."
I don't have that choice because there, but for the Grace of God, go I, and I know it.
There are some people that cannot be helped. I know one like this also.
If you really want to cleanse the gene pool, make all drugs legal and let the addicts kill themselves.
I know it sounds cruel but sometimes tough love is the only love that will work, and if the person can't break the hold with help, then they're better off dead. I say this as one that came to the breaking point and backed away from the brink of the abyss.
Society can do nothing unless the vast majority of society actually care.
From your nick I'm going to suppose that you actually remember when the neighborhood looked out for everyone's kids that lived in the neighborhood.
That's what it's going to take for society to break the drug dependence of addicts. Everyone watching out for everyone else. Catch it before it goes too far.
I vote for your third option. It involves the individuals in question acting as freely as they are able to (i.e. doesn’t involve government/society locking them up, forcing them into prescribed rehab programs, etc), and it’s by far the cheapest (yes, money matters, because money not spent on these people, who mostly turn out to be hopeless cases, can be spent on others who are not hopeless cases). But perhaps most importantly, it would send a message that if you hope to have any future whatsoever, you must not touch this stuff under any circumstances.
I saw a news item recently showing the results of a survey which found some alarmingly high percentage of teenagers think it’s not dangerous to “just try” meth. No doubt many of them think this because of the few people they’re familiar with who have used meth, a good number are temporarily between rehab stints, fattened up again by their last stint in a lock-up rehab, and probably using again already, but not yet at rock bottom. And they’re constantly hearing about people getting “treatment” for this addiction. All this “helping” creates the impression that if one happens to get addicted to meth, one can get well again, and so other people will help you do that. Unfortunately, the truth is that it’s extremely rare for anyone to get well again from a meth habit, no matter how much money and effort is expended on them. Believing the myth that rehab works has cost plenty of people their lives, by making them decide it’s safe to “just try” meth.
This story typifies why I hate liberaltarians. (RINO’s)
Those who would call for the legalization of drugs are cruel and heartless.
I can’t imagine why anyone would - or could - look into the face of a lost individual on meth and still believe we should legalize this and other dangerous drugs.
Even their arguments that the costs of fighting the drug war would be reduced are specious and incorrect. We might reduce the money spent on local, state and federal law enforcement budgets in fighting the WOD, but our costs to house millions of drug addicts in state-run hospitals would bankrupt our country.
And the increased crime that would result from legalized drugs? Just guessing, but I’m sure our prison population would triple.
I hate and detest drugs and the lives they ruin.
Wow, interesting to hear someone who’s been there actually agree with me on this. Usually when I express this opinion (see my post #25) I get flamed as evil, heartless, uncivilized, etc, etc. I’m really not. I just think that route ends up causing the least suffering overall.
See post #24.
What alcohol can do to the human body (as well as a persons mental capacity) is stunning. I assume some of those you have worked with are wet brains'...
I know, I rarely participate on WODs threads for the same reason.
Give up after the 2 or 3rd conviction? Open an island (dump site) and send them there to stay ‘clean’?
Hard to discover a solution for human stupidity......
I have enjoyed your writing for some time. Would you add me to your ping list, please?
It’s a horrible, awful thing. My husband grew up around users, and he has an even better eye for it than I do. We see them often in the Tacoma area! It’s bad enough what they do to themselves and their loved ones (we know a local son of a millionaire who has destroyed his life and every real relationship), but they also contribute so much crime to our area.
Stupid.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
And while the millions of addicts are killing themselves on the streets of America, they will kill the heart and soul of America itself.
I think meth dealers should be hanged in public on the first offense, every time. I don't know what the answer for users is. Desert island exile for life, perhaps? In my experience, they never get clean, and will never be anything other than a burden and plague on the rest of mankind.
Note, I do NOT buy in to most of the anti-drug agenda. Marijuana is far safer and less addictive than alcohol, and this world would be a much better place if everyone who drank booze to excess would replace it with pot. I am totally in favor of marijuana legalization, with reasonable restrictions on use by minors and driving while stoned.
When so many speak about legalizing drugs to take the money quotient out of it they must not be talking about meth. I like so many have a relative on and off of meth for several years now, and the facial effects are all over her. My response to the cure would never be accepted in this country.
If you are really serious about saving lives, money, and heartache, you'd ask your legislators to outlaw alcohol too. If not, well, you're just a sad old hypocrite bagging on the dirty dope smoking hippies between sips of Scotch.
-ccm
Unfortunate, since obviously you offer a very valuable perspective, and one that’s hard to find in serious discussions of this topic, due to the microscopic number of people who ever recover from this addiction sufficiently to be participating in such discussions. Try not to let the flamers get to you. People like you, offering first hand reports on important issues, are what make FR the best discussion forum on the net.
I'm a member of MADD.
Does that answer your question?
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