Candid View on Drinking
Uploaded by Escada on Feb 27, 2002
Paul Kantner once said, "If you can remember anything about the sixties, you weren't really there." I feel this same way when talking to my peers about social gatherings, concerts and sometimes, even school. It is hard to have a conversation about last weekend without hearing, “I was so drunk,” or “I don’t know, I was really high.” People at my professional workplace seem to have no problem asking me if I could get them an ounce of weed- presumably, because I’m young. Drugs are not surrounding our culture, or society or our media as a whole; they are smothering our youth.
With these thoughts in mind I participated in my ordinary activities for a weekend, but kept an open eye to substance use-mine and others. It was a typical weekend. On Friday, I went “downtown.” "Downtown" is a couple blocks of bars and clubs that are very popular with the college and 20-something crowds. On Friday I went downtown and then to an after-hours party that lasted until 7:00am. Saturday afternoon we got to the bar at about 3:00, to watch the game and then went to a friends’ house to hang out. On Sunday, we went to a trendy lounge and then all stayed overnight at a friends’ house. Over the course of this weekend I consumed 10 mixed drinks, 6 glasses of wine, and either consumed; was introduced to, or heard 1st hand experiences of drugs such as cocaine, marijuana, “shrooms,” Ecstasy, and Xanax. Given my circumstances it would be extremely pretentious of me to sit back and think of ways to advance the war on drugs.
We as citizens, as a community, and most importantly as the most powerful country on earth we need to decide what we are trying to solve. We can no longer sit here and say, “drugs are bad,” we need action, a resolution to find a common, but realistic goal. There are many different political, social and health issues surrounding drugs. We need to decide what we want to accomplish, and we need to do this as an educated, involved, and democratic people. If we want to prevent crack heads our actions are going to be quite different then they would be if our goal were to solve the overcrowding of prisons.
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