Back From the Living Dead....

I should know better by now. I really should.

But as the saying goes; "Old habits die hard."

I am, unsuprisingly, very much struggling to sleep at the moment.

When I do it invariably requires alcohol (something I am quitting on the Soltice). I then manage an hour, perhaps two, before waking up in a worse state than before I went to sleep!

And I should not be drinking spirits at all really, not in my position. It is too damn dangerous for me to do so.

This will piss some of you off, but I make no apology. The truth may hurt sometimes, but it should never offend.

I honestly would prefer, if I had to choose, to be an opiate addict than an alcohol addict. I have been a problem drinker on many occassions and boy AM I A PROBLEM WHEN I AM DRUNK!

Then there's the smoking issue. Civvies, roll ups, electric fags, and even the odd spilff, now and then. It's the nicotine that's the real issue there though (cannabis being non-addictive as I am sure you already know). I have been addicted to nicotine far more heavily, and for a much much longer time period (since I was about11) than I was with heroin.....and......

.....tobacco addiction will kill you more surely than a managed and controlled opiate addiction will.....and.....

......in some respects it is actually harder to quit than heroin!

Now as a blatant and loud supporter of legalisation this is a real concern to me.

When we legalise (becasue we must, if we want to protect our children, and their children, from the kind of pitfalls and dangers I have spent my life falling into!) we must do it intelligently, gradually, and very very carefully.

After all, we live in a culture where some level of alcohol dependance is considered normal. We laugh and joke about it, about how drunk we are going to get, have gotten in the past, about how much we "need" a drink.......and if the Governments of this world do actually grow a pair and step up to this challenge then they need to make sure that this same cultural acceptance of addiction, in ANY form, does not extend outwards to include opium, dia-morphine, cocaine, etc etc.

So, I want to make this point here today about the whole issue.

There is no "silver bullet" that is going to erradicate the issue of psychoactives from the experience of Humanity.

I am not claiming to have all the answers. I do not know how we should go about implementing leagalisation. Working that out will require better brains than the rather warped one I possess, that much I do know!

*******

Yet, it must be done. Somehow, somewhen, it must be done. Because the "War on (innocent hard working poor communities) Drugs" has failed.

I have watched over the course of my life this problem explode out of control and permeate every corner of our society. There is not currently a single city, town or even villiage in this land where a minor, with cash in thier pocket, cannot gain access to these drugs. The same could not be said of say...vodka...for instance.

And if we just keep attacking the problem by doing more of the same, more of what we have already tried, then the situation is just going to keep on getting worse. For everyone.

At the end of the day there are no easy, simple, cheap or flawless solutions.

Perhaps though, if we addressed why it is that so many young minds are so desperate to escape from the mundanity and sham of a life lived on materialistic aims and ambitions then it'd be a start?

 

*******

I know now, as the Floyd song says, "I don't need no drugs to calm me!" I am learning to calm myself.

I also believe, emphatically, that what we do all need, with regard this thorny and highly charged emotional issue, is more, better and honest EDUCATION!

Because let's face it.

Frankly, It hasn't been all that impressive so far, has it?



Love Courage and Strength to you all

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