America The Pitiful 5

https://gantdaily.com/2018/01/30/police-continuing-investigation-into-babys-positive-drug-test-three-charged-after-police-execute-search-warrant/

I saw this the other day, and it literally made me sick to my stomach. Not because of the main headline, but because this isn't the first time I have seen something like this in our small town. What made it even worse was, this isn't the only place it is happening. It is all over the country, in every state, every county, every borough there is a problem. People will call it an epidemic, but that truly is not the right word for it.
epidemic: Also, epidemical(of a disease) affecting manypersons at the same time, and spreading fromperson to person in a locality where the disease isnot permanently prevalent.

Now I want you to look right at the words between the parentheses (of a disease). That is why it is not an epidemic. I am not sure when addiction became a disease, but I do not agree with it one bit. Yes, it is a huge problem, but never a disease. People will die from this, but it is their choice. Oh, WAIT! My bad, how many people out there say, it wasn't their choice to be come addicted. It wasn't their choice to die because they couldn't stop snorting, sticking themselves with needles, whatever. I don't believe that crap and neither should any of you!!! Unless these people were tied down and someone forced these drugs into them, then no it is not a disease. This is a choice that these people made. No matter how far strung out they are, they always had a choice.


Guess what, I have an addiction, one of the worst ones in fact: I smoke cigarettes and I know for a fact how hard it is to quit. It is not very pleasant, but guess what: I chose to do this... Granted at the time most of it was peer pressure because it was the cool thing to do. Guess what though, those same people that started me into smoking are strung out of their minds on drugs... not me though. I knew when to say no. I saw what drugs did to people in my life, and I wasn't going to get into that. 


I watched the destruction of my family right before my eyes because of drugs. My dad fought his own addictions, and he came out on top of them, except for cigarettes. My aunt lost her way a long time ago and never came back. The worst part of it, she drug my cousins down into this deep pit with her. It is rough to watch how drugs can ruin the people you love. Unlike me who declared at some point in my life, I don't know when that I'm not going to do that. I don't know what I saw, read or heard, but I just told myself it isn't worth it. 


There are two kinds of people in this world: One will follow and one to lead. We need to fight this battle of addiction not by Just Say No, or throwing these people into rehab, and have the government supply their drugs for them (which I will get into because this is just as bad as drugs themselves, just legalize bullshit!). We need to push our children into becoming leaders (and this can work for several different areas, not just drugs). 


In our schools, instead of allowing them to become bullies and become literally offended by everything, we need to push them to become the leaders of tomorrow. We need to take the cellphones away during school hours. No child needs a cell phone in school. Yes, I do agree for instances of emergencies, they are wonderful, but guess what, there have been plenty of emergencies before cell phones. (And yes I am talking about the horrific school shootings.) Now, this idea of teaching leadership, applies here too!!!


We can wage war on drugs like we have been for the past what twenty or so years, or we can approaching this from another view. Obviously what the government tried to do, did not work like they wished or we would not be passing laws (like in Ohio) about letting people die after their third overdose. I know this sounds mean, but my first thought: just let them die the first time. I know that these are people's mother, father, brother, sister, daughter, son, etc. But let's face the reality of it, is living with an addict better than having a funeral? Because to be truly honest, maybe they should be given a second chance, but that is it. If they are so "hooked" or whatever that they overdose a second time, they are going to do it a third and a forth, and basically just ruin all the lives around them. We cannot save them unless they are willing to save themselves, and clearly if you have to give that many second chances... they don't care whose life they mess up. One top of all of that, children who are forced to grow up in these situations are not going to turn out much better. I think we need to fix this all and that is one way to start. It might sound cold and heartless and for that I am sorry.


If the world wishes to call this a disease, let us discuss a cure. The cure starts with no only ourselves, but the children who we will leave this world to. We must not only tell them that drugs are bad, which they are (and have pushed on children for years now), but we must teach our children to become a leader (so they say). We need to provide them with the necessary tools (figuratively) to stand up for themselves and not follow the crowd. This will bring a better world in every sense of the word. We need to influence self worth among these individuals, not only to get rid of the usage of drugs, but to rid the world of bullying as well. If these kids are strong and willing to say no, and are able to face the world as proud individuals it will be a great start.


One thing we need to face is no matter how hard we all try, there is always going to be drugs in this world. There is always going to be the next "high". What we need to push towards these youth is the idea that the best "high" is doing good for others. A personal high if you will. The greatest feeling in the world is doing something for someone else. Watching a smile light up on someone else's face is one of the greatest feelings in the world, no matter what. If we push this into our youth's minds (I'm not saying brainwash, but simply just change the way we react to situations). This also works for bullying. If we urge our children to better themselves, and instead of putting others down lift them up and be nice. Instead of attacking bullying, we should position ourselves to promote other behavior. I think this is one of the biggest problems. We are attacking it from so many different angles, but if we step back and rethink the entire situation, we can find a better solution. Our way of thinking is not getting us anywhere good. 


Back to the drug problem, a lot of things I have heard is this opioid problem is our biggest threat. It is stemming from our doctors getting patients hooked on pain killers. This falls right back into the whole health care issue from before. These doctors are looking for money, and if they can continue to see patients, prescribe them pills, they continue to get money. (Money is the root of all evil.) We need to dive into our health care system and take a long hard look at these people. We need to find a better way to deal with pain than continuing to prescribe pills. Our pharmaceutical companies need to look into non-narcotic pills to prescribe pain. We need better pain management in this country. And for those who have been stuck in this horrible loop from the doctors we need to find a better way to help them off of these pills instead of having them buy them off the street, finding another drug to replace the ones they were taking, or going to government provided "methadone" clinics.


"Methadone" clinics sprung up all over the place, leaving one firmly planted in the backyard of our community. So as I go forward with this, you must understand maybe somewhere these clinics are doing what they are supposed to, but here it is the worst possible thing the government could have done. (But it runs back into the whole health care system, and the government is making money off of it!!!) I have never heard anyone exclaim - Methadone or Suboxone saved my life.

All those clinics are is a band-aid the government put into place with no hope to ever really fix the situation. They are not being monitored properly to even function the way they were meant to. If they were ever meant to fix the problem, instead they created a whole other problem. These people going into these clinics to "get help". Actually they go because the health care system will give them free or low-cost drugs. (I'm not saying that all clinics are like this but here in our town it is bad... like really bad.) A lot of people that go to this clinic (and I have heard of people traveling to several different clinics within the state because they have no way to monitor these people.) get the free or low cost pills, then sell them on the street and then go buy the drugs they actually want. That is one scenario happening here. 

Another is the fact that some people do go to get help and find themselves stuck. One girl I know personally went to this clinic and when she said enough was enough they refused to allow her to get off of them. She had tried to lower her dosage they were giving her because she felt it was time to finally free herself, but they told her no. So long as her "free" health insurance from the state paid for her to go there, they refused to let her go. Finally she said enough is enough and just quit going. I can't say for sure whether she is still drug free, but I know others in her situation, still stuck spinning around in the system. They trap you in so they can get their money. Basically what the government is doing is privatizing drug dealers. That is the only way I see these "clinics".

 I know I had a million other ideas roaming around in my little noggin, but I think for now this is long enough, and plenty of food for thought. 



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