IN AUSTRALIA we have become very good at pretending social problems don’t exist. The crowd at Kay Hull’s “ice” forum clearly indicated that this community is now prepared to accept that drugs are our number one problem.
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Everyone knows a family where a life has been ruined - or is being ruined - by drugs.
As the ABC’s 7.30 program about problems with ice in the Wellington Aboriginal community showed, the misery is recognised, and the drug dealers are known.
Their “Dob in a dealer” campaign will get results.
As I listened to the former drug users on stage at the Wagga forum, I wondered why anyone would want to use drugs in the first place.
As we heard, a close family doesn’t guarantee immunity. However, a key element in each speaker’s rehabilitation was their caring and loving family that was prepared to offer support over many years during their long recovery.
The speakers were now in remission, but it had been a 10-year journey.
An “addictive personality” was mentioned.
When I was a school principal, a grandfather told me about his family’s custody problems with the young children being enrolled.
He told me that he had been an alcoholic earlier in his life, and blamed himself for his daughter’s drug addiction, and subsequent death.
I expressed surprise, and said that he didn’t look like a drunk to me, but he replied, “I haven’t had a drink for twenty five years. But I am only one drink away from the gutter. You are never cured, only your willpower stands between you and your old life, and I’m never going back,” he reassured me.
Willpower.
Not starting drugs is the key. I worry that the ABC has shown “recreational” drug users favourably. Others like our regular web correspondent “jlan” stated last week that “even with ice, most users aren’t addicts”.
Our correspondent had tried drugs and, so far, had escaped harmful consequences. Maybe, but we don’t need to encourage foolish young minds into a “It can’t happen to me!” mindset.
Georgina Bartter tried ecstasy once, with fatal results. There is no safe dose. How do you know when you are hooked? Incidentally, the 19-year-old dealer who supplied the ecstasy tablets was sentenced in March.
Talking around the dinner table would help with family togetherness, as the current TV campaign suggests. Maybe too, we should be looking at the “home destroyers” in modern society - long working hours, pubs and clubs open all hours, and alcohol-related domestic violence leading to teenagers being estranged from their families.
Meanwhile, Wagga Police are doing a great job arresting drug dealers and conducting driver breath tests. Let’s add regular “sniffer dog” patrols to that campaign.
